Tech & Learning (Nov 2010, Vol. 31, No. 4)

VOLUME 31 NUMBER 4

 Professional Development: blended is better  How to turn students into STEM innovators techlearning.com

IDEAS AND TOOLS FOR ED TECH LEADERS

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NOVEMBER 2010

Does more tech = less reading?

Lights, Cameras, Action!

Best Web tools for class

Digital video in the classroom

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contents

NOVEMBER 2010 | VOL. 31 NO. 4

FEATURES

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Top Web Tools for Enhancing Collaboration

By Özge Karaoglu

SCHOOL CIO Professional Development: Blended is better Texas recently launched Project Share, a portal offering teachers online professional development, Web 2.0 connectivity, and enriched classroom resources. By Pam Derringer

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PRODUCTS

It’s not news that collaboration is a proven method of effective teaching, and Web 2.0 has enlarged peer collaboration to a global scale. Here are some of the coolest tools you can use to kick-start collaborative projects in any curriculum.

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Put to the Test: T&L editors take some new products for a test drive. 20 22 24 26

Serif DrawPlus X4 Casio Green Slim XJ-A130 Digital Multimedia Projector Ignite! Stick—Made for SMART The Pedlar Lady of Gushing Cross

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The Long Review

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10 Great Ways to Use Digital Video Cameras in the Classroom

This month: Meet the students: In action in the classroom

Educators are flipping for Flips and other inexpensive digital cameras. Here is a sampling of ways you can use these tools in any curriculum. By Ellen Ullman

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November 2010 What’s New Acuity Enhancements • CAMS Series • Clamshell classmate PC design • CPX8 3LCD video projector • EdWeb 2.0 • ExOS 5.5 • Faronics AntiVirus • Fluency Tutor • Lutron GRAFIK Eye QS Wireless • Mini Solar Kits • Numonics INTELLIBOARD interactive whiteboard • Peek • PLATO Learning Online Courses • Schoolnet Respond • Thinkspiration • Toon Boom 6 • WriteToLearn 6.0 • Zaner-Bloser Spelling Connections • and more

DEPARTMENTS & COLUMNS 6 Editor’s Desk The Next Level

• Sites We Like • 21st-century schools can protect themselves from copyright violation

8 News & Trends • Next Big Thing: Smiths Detection X-ray screening

• Does more tech = less reading? • Small change makes a difference

• Digital storytelling and literacy resources for kids

• A form of change 18 How It’s Done: Medical Schooling

Which schools are safest?

• Student programming contest • E-rate changes promote broadband

Stephen Biscotte has stepped up to the STEM challenge with his PIT Crew: Physicians-In-Training program.

50 They Said It: Talk About the Message By Bob Sprankle Why aren’t parents talking to their kids about TV? Tech & Learning (ISSN-1053-6728) (USPS 695-590) is published monthly by NewBay Media, LLC 810 Seventh Ave., 27th Floor, New York, NY 10019 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Tech & Learning, PO Box 8746, Lowell, MA 01853 Periodicals Postage Paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Copyright ©2010 NewBay Media, LLC All Rights Reserved.

TE C H & L E A R N IN G | 3

NOVEMBER 2010

[email protected] Professional development, funding, and free stuff: Check out our Web offerings from teachers, administrators, and tech coordinators.

THE MOST-READ STORIES ON

TECHLEARNING.COM 100 Ways Google Can Make You a Better Educator Using Sites, Google Earth, Wave, and more, you can turn your classroom into a place where you can share, collaborate, and publish on the Web.

17 Digital Storytelling and Literacy Resources for Kids Guest blogger Shelly Terrell shares her favorite free apps to help kids create their own stories, listen to stories, increase their reading skills, and improving their English proficiency.

Jazz Up Your Powerpoints with Alternatives Ozge Karaoglu provides presentation alternatives to Powerpoint that can blow your audience away with more innovative ways of presenting online.

I Can’t Wane My Wordling Michael Gorman knows you might be a Wordle power user, but he thinks you might learn at least one new thing from this Hooked On Wordle Educator.

Top 10 Sites for Creating Digital Comics David Kapuler reports there are many online alternatives to Comic Life or Toon Boom (mostly free) that offer fun ways to develop digital comics.

Are Online Predator Risks Exaggerated? Dean Shareski questions the real danger of online predators, including the statistics that claim one in five children is now approached by online predators.

Survey: Kids Reading Less; Can E-books Help? The 2010 Kids and Family Reading Report shows kids are reading less, but also found indications that technology could be a positive motivator to get kids reading.

Follow us on TWITTER (techlearning) and FACEBOOK (Tech&Learning Magazine)

ondemand UPCOMING WEBINARS Transforming Education: Learning Powered by Technology Thursday, November 4, 4 pm EST Sponsored by Motorola

Web 2.0 Schools Tuesday, November 9, 4 pm EST A K-12 Computing Blueprint webinar sponsored by Intel

ARCHIVED WEBINARS How to Set Up a Technology Day in Your District Sponsored by Atomic Learning

Tips to Securing Your Network in a Mobile and Web 2.0 World Sponsored by Lightspeed Systems

EBOOKS Keeping Students Safe Online: What Works Sponsored by Learning.com

A New Generation of Wi-Fi in K-12 Sponsored by Aerohive Check techlearning.com for updates

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editor’s desk

NOVEMBER 2010 | VOL. 31 NO. 4 Publisher: Allison Knapp [email protected]; (510) 868-5074; Fax: (650) 238-0263 EDITORIAL Editorial Director: Kevin Hogan [email protected]

THE NEXT LEVEL

Managing Editor: Christine Weiser [email protected] Editorial Interns: Amir Hardy, Clea Mahoney Senior Art Director: Nicole Cobban [email protected] Art Director: Annmarie LaScala Contributing Editors: Judy Salpeter, Gwen Solomon Custom Editorial Director: Gwen Solomon [email protected]

One of the best parts of this job is the regular opportunity to sit with some very smart and influential leaders in public education. It happened again last month at Tech & Learning’s first Tech Forum Atlanta.

ADVISERS David Warlick, Ryan Bretag, Patrick Higgins, David Andrade, Dean Shareski, Scott Meech, Kim Cofino, Darren Draper, Terry Freedman, Cheryl Oakes, Bob Sprankle, Lisa Thumann, Jen Wagner, Lisa Nielsen, Ben Grey, Michael Gorman, Daniel Rezac, Henry Thiele, Özge Karaog ˘ lu, Kevin Jarrett, Kyle Pace, Steven W. Anderson, Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano TECHLEARNING.COM Assistant Web Editor: Diana Restifo

The daylong series of sessions, conceived and implemented by longtime Tech & Learning veteran Judy Salpeter, drive our editorial calendar for the coming year. They also provide attendees with the latest and greatest tools and ideas for edtech leaders. Administrators and educators from across the country converged to inspire and learn from each other. Mike Porter, director of technology at Ware County Schools (GA), detailed some of the astounding things his district has achieved thanks to their use of Internet2. Keynote David Jakes, coordinator of instructional technology at Glenbrook South (IL), spelled out the essential steps for smart social media in schools. Edtech luminary David Warlick shared his list of Web tools here: www.delicious.com/dwarlick/web20tools, which promptly took off through the Twitterverse. By the time you read this, we will have held two other in-person Tech Forum events in New York and Austin, TX. But this year, I’m happy to announce a solution for all those who are geographically impaired or who missed the dates of our live events. On November 17, from 10am to 5pm EST, Tech & Learning will be hosting its first Virtual Tech Forum. The invaluable conversations that occur in our face-to-face gatherings will be transferred into online space, with what I expect to be great results. For more details on the big day and to register, go here: www.techlearning.com/section/VirtualTechForum.aspx

ADVERTISING SALES East Coast Sales Manager: Caliann Mitoulis [email protected]; (215) 370-5813 MARKETING AND EVENTS Marketing Manager: Jared Stearns [email protected] Director of Events: Diana Milbert [email protected] Production Director: Bill Amstutz [email protected] Production Manager: Nicole Spell [email protected] CIRCULATION Group Circulation Director: Denise Robbins [email protected] Associate Director for Audience Development: Tracey Dwyer [email protected] REPRINTS AND PERMISSIONS Wright’s Reprints: (877) 652-5295 EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING OFFICES 810 Seventh Ave., 27th Floor, New York, NY 10019 Phone: (212) 378-0400; Fax: (650) 238-0263 For general editorial correspondence: [email protected] NEWBAY MEDIA LLC—CORPORATE President & CEO: Steve Palm Chief Financial Officer: Paul Mastronardi Vice President, Web Development: Joe Ferrick NEWBAY MEDIA K-12 EDUCATION GROUP Vice President, Group Publishing Director: Adam Goldstein Publisher: Allison Knapp Editorial Director: Kevin Hogan Editorial/Creative Director: Anthony Savona Online Production Manager: Rob Granger

We hope to “see” you there!

Web Production Specialist: Ashley Vermillion Web Director: Ragan Whiteside SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION $29.95 per year in the U.S. $59.90 for two years. $39.95 in Canada and Mexico. $69.95 in all other countries. To subscribe: (888) 266-5828 or www.techlearning.com

www.techlearning.com Kevin Hogan Editorial Director N THE WEB

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news trends

by T&L editors

nextbigthing

See-through safety Airports aren’t the only places using X-ray screening to search for weapons, narcotics, and explosives. Smiths Detection reports that over the past year, U.S. schools have bought more than $1.1 million worth of its security systems with which to screen students and staff alike. The tech provider’s portable HI-SCAN 5030si and HI-SCAN 6040ds systems produce detailed images of scanned items through high-resolution sensor technology, enabling school safety agents to quickly evaluate bags, backpacks, and other personal items.

www.smithsdetection.com

8 | TECH & L EA RN IN G

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news  trends Does more tech = less reading? Between the ages of six and 17, the amount of time kids spend reading books for fun declines, while the time they spend going online for fun and using cell phones to text or talk increases, according to the “2010 Kids & Family Reading Report,” a national survey conducted by Scholastic and the Harrison Group. In addition, the report found parents expressing concern that the use of electronic and digital devices negatively affects the time kids spend: ■ reading books (41%) ■ doing physical activities (40%) ■ engaging with family (33%) But the study also revealed signs that technology can help motivate kids to read: Fifty-seven percent of kids

aged nine to 17 say they are interested in reading an e-book, and a third of children in the same age group say they would read more books for fun if they had access to e-books on an electronic device. Visit www.scholastic.com/readingreport for the full report.

WHICH SCHOOLS ARE SAFEST? The Safe Search Awards Index, an annual ranking, administered by netTrekker, of the 100 school districts that keep their students safest when the kids are searching online, has been released. The 2009–2010 school-year Safe Search Awards Program was broken down by small, medium-sized, and large districts. Orange County Public Schools in Florida finished first among the large districts, having had more than 5.4 million safe searches in 2009–2010. Among the midsize districts, Blue Springs School District in Missouri led with 1,619,750 searches. Morehouse Parish School District in Louisiana came in first among the small districts with 429,797 searches. For the complete list, visit www .netTrekker.com.

T&L ASKS READERS Chances are you have more software and computing power at your fingertips than do all the astronauts put together. How much do you actually use in school?

Sites We Like www.trailtribes.org

0% None. Classroom is a tech-free zone.

20.83% We’re almost all computerized. We are truly 21st century.

8.33% 70.83%

Hardly any, just the basics.

Pretty good and getting better.

See more polls at techlearning.com.

1 0 | TECH & L EA RN IN G

An excellent resource on the tribal groups located along the trails followed by explorers Lewis and Clark.

Achieving math and science excellence.

Intel® Schools of Distinction 2010 AWARD WINNER PROFILES Excellence in mathematics and science education is at the heart of our nation’s ability to innovate and create a viable future. Intel is committed to the education of tomorrow’s innovators— we celebrate the 2010 winners of the Intel Schools of Distinction awards and our Star Innovator, the Walter Payton College

These schools demonstrate daily that students can engage in math and science education in meaningful ways, transforming both their own lives and their communities. The dedication and commitment of the schools, teachers, and communities serve as models for many other schools around the country and the world. These pioneers in 21st century education each receive a $10,000 grant from the Intel Foundation, as well as curriculum materials, professional development resources, and hardware and software from program sponsors. The Star Innovator receives an additional $15,000 Intel Foundation grant, as well as additional products and services from the program sponsors. Visit www.schoolsofdistinction.com and www.k12blueprint.com to learn more about this exciting opportunity for your school and program sponsors, and to apply for the 2011 Intel Schools of Distinction award.

Preparatory High School in Chicago, Illinois.

STAR INNOVATOR

Walter Payton College Preparatory High School, Chicago, IL Recognized for Math Excellence Principal: Ellen Estrada Public High School Enrollment: 894 www.wpcp.org

The motto of Chicago’s Walter Payton College Preparatory High School is “We nurture leaders.” The school’s proven ability to foster leadership qualities in its diverse, urban student body, while achieving excellence in math education make it a stellar choice for the 2010 Intel Schools of Distinction Star Innovator award. “We seek to offer our students the very best educational experience possible, one that challenges, that fosters creativity and the literacy skills with which to understand and express that creativity, that encourages integrity and the appreciation of diversity, and one that uses the latest in educational technology,” says Principal Ellen Estrada. Payton’s math department engages in Japanese lesson study: teachers collaborate on the meticulous design of a single lesson; then the entire department

observes. Estrada explains, “We learn how students think and learn; we observe and assess pedagogical techniques; and we create and model ongoing collaboration.” Each day’s lesson is a revision of the best idea to date. It only takes one teacher to see a new use of technology (e.g., modeling complex numbers on geometry software) for the idea to spread instantly through the course and department. All mathematics courses incorporate

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SPEICAL ADVERTISING SECTION OF TECH AND LEARNING

problem-solving, teaching students to approach unfamiliar material in a spirit of discovery. Extended block lessons once a week and innovative, co-curricular seminars throughout the semester allow students to master skills and focus on advanced or unusual topics. Critical thinking skills are a priority— students test hypotheses, assess real world data, and explain and justify conclusions. Mathematics courses in-

clude measurement, data analysis, and modeling activities, using the same digital lab instruments as the science classes. Algebra I and Geometry courses are almost entirely activitybased while advanced students work together to prove major theorems of number theory and calculus: their “textbook” consists of lists of axioms, theorems to prove, and problem sets. The results are exemplary: more than 99 percent of Payton students meet

or exceed state math standards. 98 percent graduate, and 95 percent finish college. Most importantly, Payton’s vision comes alive in its dedicated teachers and energized students. Says Estrada, “Our students ask ‘why’ and ‘why not’, write and act reflectively, and not reflexively, and set and surpass their own standards. We provide them with a global education that nurtures future leaders.” ‡

MS 223, The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology Bronx, NY Recognized for Math Excellence Principal: Ramon M. Gonzalez Public Middle School Enrollment: 469 www.ms223.org

When Principal Ramon Gonzalez started MS 223: The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology in the Bronx seven years ago, only 12 percent of the students were proficient in math. Now, mathematics achievement has soared—with 86 percent of sixth graders, and 88 percent of seventh graders now scoring proficient or higher on state tests. Says Gonzalez, “Our school has become a model school in NYC. Other schools come to see how we empower our students to achieve at such high proficiencies. Our students are starting to get accepted to competitive math and science high schools, and many of them are going to high school with math credits for algebra—which is rare in the South Bronx.” Key factors contributing to the school’s superior math achievement include teacher collaboration, extensive professional development, an ongoing support system for students, and a deep dedication to students’ success. Teachers collaborate continually, sharing best

2

practices and ideas for helping individual students, as well as the ups and downs of doing this vital yet challenging work in the South Bronx. Gonzalez sees teamwork as critical, “It really is a team at MS 223 and that provides us with great strength, solid communication, and an united vision of what we want to accomplish. The success of the students is our success, and it’s based on intense collaboration.” Instructional strategy is shaped by assessment. Teachers focus on collecting accurate and useful data on student progress, and identifying gaps in mathematics knowledge or missing skills. This data then drives differentiated instruc-

tion, allowing teachers to focus on areas where students need help, and engage students in intensive, small group work. Real-world examples and applications in business and technology are integrated into the mathematics curriculum. Students explore technical careers through classroom experiences, guest speakers, field trips, internships, and project-based learning. The combination of compassion and high standards is making a difference. MS 223’s exceptional mathematics program has become a source of inspiration to its students, community, and state. Says Gonzalez, “We seek to address each student individually and as a critical member of our society. Our entire staff is committed to a school environment that allows our students to flourish and grow—intellectually, emotionally, and socially.” ‡

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Westdale Heights Public Elementary School, Baton Rouge, LA Recognized for Science Excellence Principal: Norma Church Public Middle School Enrollment: 445 http://westdaleheights.ebrschools.org

Elementary school children at the Westdale Heights Public Elementary School, in Baton Rouge, love science. It’s easy to see why. Principal Norma Church keeps a realworld focus that is full of interest for these young learners, “Our science instruction is based on hands-on demonstrations, inquiry-based investigations, and real problem solving. Technology—from a SMART* board, and USB microscopes, to digital cameras and a working NOAA weather station—is part of daily instruction.” to align lab learning with curriculum goals. Every student is scheduled in the science lab for a minimum of 60 minutes weekly.

Science instruction is integrated into all facets of the curriculum. It has become a vehicle for applying reading, writing, oral discussion, research, higher order thinking skills, problem solving, creative visual and performing arts, inquiry based learning, social and civic responsibility, leadership development, technology, and community involvement. Students often tell Church, “The science lab is where we learn real science by experimenting, not just using a book.” Their enthusiasm is backed by rigorous science education. Science performance is in the 97th percentile or higher. Lessons support State curricula standards and benchmarks. A science specialist collaborates with every grade level teacher

Children are required to read scienceUHODWHGQRQÀFWLRQERRNVLQD:HEEDVHG accelerated reader program. All children write daily about their experiences in the science curriculum. In grades three WRÀYHVWXGHQWVNHHSH[WHQVLYHVFLHQFH journals with written observations and ÀHOGGUDZLQJV/DEQRWHVDUHDQQRWDWHG with their predictions, observations, data, and conclusions.

This thoroughly engaged student body is equipped at a young age with the tools to solve real-world science problems and participate in a global community. Church sees science as an important tool for creating leaders and committed citizens, “Socially and emotionally, children are engaged in monthly projects that reach out to our community, state, nation, and the world. We are developing leaders—one child at a time.” ‡

At Westdale, jokes Church, “no child is left inside.” The Metamorphosis Children’s Garden grows saplings for the Louisiana State University’s Coastal Roots programs, along with native plants and vegetables. A pond area is used WRUDLVHÀVKDQGGXFNV7KHEXWWHUÁ\ JDUGHQLVDQRIÀFLDO:D\6WDWLRQLQWKH Monarch Watch project. Students help WUDFNEXWWHUÁ\PLJUDWLRQWR0H[LFREXLOG PRGHOVRIÁRRGSODLQVUHDGZHDWKHUVWDtion data, participate in global conservation efforts, and care for the diverse wildlife that inhabits the school gardens.

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3

2011 Intel Schools of Distinction Application Available now at: www.schoolsofdistinction.com

Vision

Awards

Identifying learning environments that promote 21st century learning skills in math and science. These schools represent a benchmark for academic excellence in elementary, middle, and high schools across the United States.

Each winning school will receive a $10,000 cash grant from the Intel Foundation, as well as more than $150,000 in products and services from program sponsors.

Basic Requirements

For more information, visit www.schoolsofdistinction.com and www.k12blueprint.com.

Exemplary math and science learning environments in the following grade ranges are eligible:

One of the final six winners will be identified as the Star Innovator for 2011. The Star Innovator achieves demonstrated excellence in math or science and will receive an additional $15,000 cash grant from the Intel Foundation, as well as supplemental services and products from program sponsors.

‡ . ‡  ‡ 

Finalists and winners are chosen who best meet or exceed metrics representing the intersection of: ‡ %HQFKPDUNVODLGRXWE\WKH Partnership for 21st-century Skills in the ICT literacy maps for math and science, and ‡ 1DWLRQDOPDWKDQGVFLHQFH content standards.

Judges also consider the following factors: ‡ /HDGHUVKLSPRGHO ‡ /HYHORIFRPPXQLW\LQYROYHPHQW ‡ &ROODERUDWLRQDQGWHDPZRUN ‡ 6WXGHQWDFKLHYHPHQW ‡ 8VHRIULFKGLJLWDOFRQWHQW ‡ 3URIHVVLRQDOGHYHORSPHQW programs

“Schools today are eager to prepare their students for DFDUHHULQDPDWKRUVFLHQFHUHODWHGÀHOGDQGWREH engaged citizens in this era of technology and innovation. We seek to recognize the schools that are doing this best, and to share their models as broadly as possible.” WENDY HAWKINS, Executive Director, Intel Foundation

© 2010, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

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*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. 1010/EL/CMD/PDF 324419-001

SPEICAL ADVERTISING SECTION OF TECH AND LEARNING

EXPLORE. LEARN. CONNECT.

NOVEMBER 17, 2010 11AM – 7 PM EST Dr. Joseph Barrow, Superintendent of Schools, Ware County, GA

Dr. Michael Hall, VP Educational Services, Information Transport Solutions, AL

Dr. Vallerie Cave, Educational Consultant and former administrator, Risley Early College Academy, GA

Jill Hobson, Director of Instructional Technology, Forsyth County Schools, GA

Join ’s highly respected, award-winning team for this FREE, exciting virtual event unlike any other. Connect virtually with other ed tech leaders across the country. Learn about exciting new products and interact live with company representatives in the exhibit hall. Listen to thought-provoking and practical webcasts. Chat with peers about hot topics in K-12 education. Win end-of-show prize drawings. Experience the benefits of a live event without having to travel. Access all the cutting-edge information and online demonstrations all year long! Visit the three Tech & Learning Pavilions to meet like-minded education leaders and focus on a variety of topics vital to 21st century education. Tentative topics include:

David Jakes, Coordinator of Instructional Technology, Glenbrook South High School, IL

Chris Lehmann, Founding Principal, Science Leadership Academy, PA

Scott Meech, Technology Facilitator, the Joseph Sears School, IL

Lisa Nielsen, Technology Innovation Manager, NYC Department of Education

Mike Porter, Director of Technology, Ware County Schools, GA

Cathy Swan, Technology Integration Teacher, New Canaan Public Schools, CT

CURRICULUM: Students, Classrooms and Learning • Web 2.0 in the classroom • 21st century literacies • Cool tools for communication and collaboration • Technology for English Language Learners ADMINISTRATION: Leadership, Policy and Funding • One-to-one implementations • Advocacy and PR: Getting the word out • Effective approaches to professional development • Building your own personal/professional learning network IT: Implementation, Infrastructure and Support • Laptops, tablets, netbooks and smartphones: how to choose • Network security • Virtualization and other cost-saving approaches • AV essentials and breakthroughs

Sponsored by: David Warlick, Director, the Landmark Project, NC

Willyn Webb, Teacher, Counselor and Adjunct Professor, Delta, CO

TO REGISTER VISIT WWW.TECHLEARNING.COM/SECTION/VIRTUALTECHFORUM.ASPX Interested in becoming a Virtual Tech Forum sponsor? Email Christina Kalantzis at [email protected]

news  trends Top 10 Ways 21st-Century Schools Can Protect Themselves from Copyright Violation Educators as well as students must have a clear understanding of copyright regulations so that not only can they avoid committing violations themselves, they can also protect their own work from being used out of context unlawfully. Here are some of the chief ways that 21st-century schools, educators, and students can safeguard themselves.

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Be mindful that copyright regulations apply to various media. “As a passive reminder that copyright laws apply to virtually all copying,” says expert on copyright law and author Carol Simpson, “get stickers similar to those that you find on copy machines and put them on all equipment capable of making copies.” When using video, get permission or licenses. “One of the most frequent causes of cease-and-desist

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letters to schools is showing entertainment films that are not tied to the curriculum,” Simpson says. “Such showings require permission from the copyright owner or payment of royalties because they are nonexempt public performances.” If it’s a consumable—that is, something that is destroyed or altered by being used for its intended purpose (and thus is intended for a single use only)— don’t copy it. Schools often get in trouble when teachers make photocopies of tear-out sheets in student handbooks. Lead by example. Instructors have to cite the sources of the materials they use in handouts and be sure they

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SMALL CHANGE MAKES A DIFFERENCE eduTecher.net is a free resource for teachers, students, and parents that focuses on using free Web tools in the classroom. The site has reviewed more than 1,200 tools and includes more than 45 videos explaining how to use them to teach. It recently launched “eduTechers Change the World,” a charity campaign in which each visitor to the site donates a penny to an aid organization. At the end of November, the users can vote to decide which charity will receive the money. For more details, visit the Change the World page, www.eduTecher.net/change.

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have the necessary permissions when creating course packets, in order to model proper behavior for students. Just because it’s easily accessible doesn’t mean you can use it freely. Material on the Internet is not exempt from copyright policies. Student copyright should not be overlooked. Schools should put the same effort into protecting students’ work that they do into not committing violations with more-commercial resources, such as textbooks and entertainment. Unpublished work requires citation. Even if work has not been formally published, it still has to be cited when referenced in other work. Utilize your resources. Use software programs that check the originality of students’ work, such as Turnitin.

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Policies must be in place. Without the proper policies and procedures for punishing copyright offenses in position, the whole concept of copyright becomes moot. Educators and students alike have to understand copyright policy and the ramifications of violating it. Teach students the importance of academic honesty. If students understand the fundamentals of academic integrity, including the value of producing original work, obeying copyright policies will become second nature to them. —Renee Bangerter is a professor of English at Saddleback College, Mission Viejo, CA.

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FREE LITERACY RESOURCES Looking for fun resources for teaching literacy that won’t break your budget? Here are some of my favorites. Talking Tom Cat: Kids talk to Tom, and he repeats in a funny voice everything that’s said. Within seconds, the students’ words are recorded as a video of Tom talking that can be uploaded to YouTube and Facebook or sent by email. StoryKit: Create an electronic storybook by drawing on the screen, uploading images, recording sound effects and voices, and more. Fotobabble: Quickly create and easily share talking photos in three steps. StoryCorps: Listen to the weekly interview; share life stories via email, Facebook, and Twitter; get tips for recording interviews on mobile devices. Read Me Stories—Children’s Books: A different talking picture book every day teaches children new concepts and new words and how to say them.

Puppet Animation Lite: Kids animate uploaded images or sample puppets and animate them by choosing Swing, Elastic, or Scaling; they save the animation as a GIF to send via email or Twitter. Library of Congress Virtual Tour for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad: Highlights exhibitions and architectural features and includes photos, audio, links, and video. Animoto: Upload images, choose a soundtrack from the library, and click a button to make a 30-second video. Sync your video with your animoto .com account, download it for offline viewing, and make longer videos with an All-Access Pass. K12 Timed Reading Practice Lite: 25 short, engaging stories for K–4 readers that feature a variety of fiction and nonfiction and 10 Flesh-Kincade reading levels. Tales2Go: Free for 30 days. Instant, on-demand, and unlimited access to more than 1,200 stories from leading audio publishers and storytellers.

Chicktionary Lite: The chicken bobs its head and clucks when kids use one of their letters to make a word. The “beak sneak” option fills in one letter of each of the words not yet found. Kid Apps: 13 in 1: Thirteen applications including math games, more than 600 flash cards, interactive tracing drills, the ABCs, counting, vocabulary, number and letter tracing, a Math Whiz quiz, a musical-instrument vocabulary, words for (and pictures of) things around the house, and more. —Shelly Terrell is an educator and guest blogger on techlearning.com.

Sites We Like: http://blog.tate.org .uk/tate-tales

Student programming contest Faronics announces its first student programming contest, the Faronics Core Programming Competition. The FCPC is open to all postsecondary computer science students and provides an opportunity for them to test their skills and knowledge by building products that integrate with Faronics Core, a centralized software-deployment and -management platform for Faronics products. First-place cash prize: $20,000; second-place cash prize: $10,000. Registration deadline: November 30, 2010 For more information, visit www.faronics.com/fcpc.

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Students let their imaginations run wild when they select a painting from the Tate gallery’s collection. They can interrupt the painting by making up a story about it.

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news  trends

A FORM OF CHANGE

E-rate changes promote broadband

By Sascha Zuger Once initial tech costs are covered, teachers are trained, parental resistance is handled, and kids find a new version of “The dog ate my homework” to excuse their late book reports, paperless classrooms can start reaping the financial benefits of saving all those trees. You say you’re not quite ready to swap heavy backpacks for flash-drive lanyards? Take a page from the Visalia Unified School District in California, and you may find that small change adds up to big bucks. Because of budget cuts, the district asked all departments to find ways they could do more with less. Al Foytek, director of IT, discovered that Visalia USD, which has a population of 27,000 (K–12) students and 25,000 employees at 44 educational sites, also had more than 100 labor-intensive, inefficient paper-based administrative processes. Foytek used PerfectForms, a Webbased service ($30 a month) that lets users build and customize applications from an existing library, to create simple online forms for each process. The savings provided by a single multipart and multicolor form, each printed copy of which cost 75 cents, topped $10,000 a year. “It always makes sense to spend money when it will save even more money,” Foytek says. “When we can save money and at the same time reduce our footprint and preserve more of our precious resources, it is a no-brainer; you have to go for it.”

TIPS FOR GOING PAPERLESS ■ Automate intranet forms to communicate between districts.

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■ Post editable forms so teachers can complete them online without printing. ■ Eliminating filing, stocking, and distribution saves not only staff hours but also the secure physical space that was previously needed to house forms, records, and paper supplies. ■ Consider switching from Arial to Century Gothic, a font that uses roughly 30 percent less ink. One company offers “eco-font” software, which shoots tiny holes through each letter, reducing ink usage by 30 percent.

The Federal Communinications Commission n has released the long-anticipated National Broadband Orders, which lays out the agency’s plan to promote affordable broadband access. While t`he plan affects a number of government programs, some of its most sweeping changes involve the current E-rate program. The most significant announcement for E-rate participants is that the funding cap will be indexed to general economy inflation in an effort to stifle depreciation and increase the number of applicants vying for Priority 2 funding for internal connection projects. The commission is also allowing applicants to open up E-rate–funded services to the community for after-hours use so long as it does not interfere with educational purposes. For more information on the E-rate program, visit www. fundsforlearning.com.

Sites We Like: www.aviary.org/curric/ birdor.htm An investigation of the archaeopteryx, an animal whose fossilized remains first led scientists to suggest that birds and dinosaurs are related, takes learners through a consideration of all the things that make a bird a bird and a dinosaur a dinosaur.

Ladibug™ Document Cameras Unanimously Chosen as Favorite Classroom Tool! VW&HQWXU\7HDFKHUV

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news  trends How It’s Done

Medical Schooling By Ellen Ullman

Cave Spring High School students use sensors to collect and analyze data gathered from physical exercise to understand human anatomy better.

with the students and helped them design experiments for measuring fitness. While they worked with these adults, the students also learned about a variety of STEM careers. The classes were divided into small groups that tested freshmen on various pieces of equipment, such as stationary bikes and treadmills. While conducting the experiments, the students learned how to connect sensors to laptops, collect and analyze data, and create graphs, and all about anatomy. “The scientific method is the big umbrella,” Biscotte says. “How do you conduct a trial from start to finish?” Thanks to $15,000 in grants from Toshiba, Vernier, and ING, Biscotte

A May 2010 report from the National Science Board asks teachers to produce students who have the potential to become our country’s next generation of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) innovators. Stephen Biscotte has already stepped up to the plate with his PIT Crew: Physicians-In-Training program. Biscotte, who teaches anatomy and physiology to seniors at Cave Spring High School in Roanoke, Virginia, has his students conduct clinical trials to determine which exercise equipment can lead to higher levels of fitness. “I want students to incorporate the technology they’ll use in future fields into what they’re learning,” he says. Realizing that the traditional Vernier Logger Pro lab-and-lecture format was not enough for today’s tech-savvy stu- Vernier sensors: EKG, Blood Pressure, Hand-Grip Heart dents, Biscotte invited a physical Rate Monitor, Temperature trainer, an exercise physiologist, Probes, Spirometer, Hand and a respiratory therapist to come Dynamometer, Respiration in and show X-rays to give them Monitor Belt some background. A physician and Nintendo Wii and Wii Fit a college professor brainstormed

What They Use

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purchased sensors (heart rate, blood pressure, EKG), a weight machine, a punching bag, a treadmill, a Wii and a Wii Fit. “The students were really into it and loved playing doctor,” he says. “They felt like experts, and some said they’d like to go into the health-care field.” Even better, a couple of students from the first PIT Crew are now in nursing school or studying anatomy. In addition to the in-class doctoring, Biscotte started an after-school book club that meets at a coffee shop every nine weeks. The 20 students in the club have excellent discussions and love the vividly realistic stories they read. “The PIT program has been very beneficial in letting students learn information and practice skills that have real-world application,” says Julian Barnes, coordinator of science for Roanoke County Public Schools. “Merging these two areas—skill attainment and vocational practice—is difficult yet most rewarding for the students, as they are able to see the significance and reasoning of their education.”

A DV E RTO R I A L

Creating Video in Classrooms ROB SAMPOGNA

Video is shaping the world around us. Students watch videos all the time, and media literacy is a 21st century skill that involves being able to analyze and understand the media they see and to create their own media productions. Today’s young people enjoy all types of media and are facile with it. When schools capitalize on this affinity by integrating technologies into classroom activities, students are more engaged. When students are engaged, they are learning. Using video forces students to make connections, delve to find deeper meaning, and understand issues and processes. They learn to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate as they create. It involves higher order thinking skills, writing, teamwork, planning, producing and sharing using additional technologies. Video is so versatile that students can learn in every subject area. From creating school-wide daily news broadcasts to classroom documentaries to language practice and filming events, there’s a use for video everywhere. Here’s how to make it happen.

10 Reasons to Have Students Create Videos: Video Production: 1. is fun – and learning should be fun! 2. engages and excites students. 3. helps students to express a real understanding of core classroom content. 4. helps students retain what they learn. 5. allows students to express their creativity. 6. requires students to practice “real-life” skills of planning and organization, time management, cooperation, communication, problem solving, information synthesizing, leadership and followership. 7. utilizes whole curriculum skills: reading, researching, writing, speaking, listening and math skills. 8. requires students to think at a higher level. 9. leads students to improve their technology skills. 10. helps them to develop problem-solving skills.

ROB SAMPOGNA

The Process: Prepare, Plan, Present ■ Prepare. Use the 10 reasons below to convince stakeholders that video is THE technology to use. ■ Plan and create. Use the 9 steps below in any subject area or grade level. ■ Present and share. Show everyone what students have accomplished. 9 Steps to Creating a Video 1. Brainstorm a topic or idea 2. Create a plan and rubric: What will happen? Know what you want for the end project. Who will do what? Know who is accountable for each task. Students take on tasks (producer, writer, director, editor, etc.) and share responsibilities. 3. Scripting: Students write, rewrite, and continue the writing process through multiple drafts. The script must have an introduction, body, conclusion and transitions. 4. Storyboarding/Scripting: Sketch out scenes that the video project will have. 5. Sets/Props and Costumes: Plan the place/ backgrounds the video will use. Make sure there is enough light and free of background noise. Creating Costumes – THINK SIMPLE 6. Rehearse: Students must learn their lines. Create cue cards if needed.

7. Shoot the video 8. Editing and Post Production: Use editing software to put the scenes together, add music, edit sound, add special effects and credits. 9. Share: Upload to a class or school website; Create a DVD; Show at an assembly

Learn More Download the eBook, Classroom Video: Tools and Strategies to Engage Students in Learning

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TE C H & L E A R N IN G | 1 9

PRODUCTREVIEWS

Put to the Test T&L editors take some new products for a test drive PRODUCT: DRAWPLUS X4 www.serif.comRetail price: $49.95 (educational pricing) stand-alone; $149 as a program in the integrated Serif Design Suite. Suite site licenses start at $2,200. By Carol S. Holzberg Windows-compatible DrawPlus X4 2D and 3D graphics tools create and polish Web images, stop-frame and key-frame Flash animations, logos, photos, and illustrations for print and digital projects. The latest version adds several features and enhancements. QUALITY AND EFFECTIVENESS: Serif’s DrawPlus X4 provides a student-friendly alternative to Adobe Illustrator. Its graphics tool kit is available for about half Illustrator’s price. While DrawPlus has been around for some time, the latest release adds features to, and upgrades others in, its collection of standard Bezier tools; customizable brushes; specialeffect filters; and start-up templates. It even opens Adobe Illustrator (.ai) files (V9 and later) and saves key-frame animations in Adobe Flash (SWF) format. EASE OF USE: Start-up templates, video tutorials, and onscreen How-To Guides provide step-by-step directions for a variety of design tasks. Movie tutorials streamed from the Serif Web site teach users how to create rollover Web buttons, animated Web banners, and 2-D charts and plans. CREATIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY: This program supports text-to-path drawing as well as freehand curve designs. A

Top Features  This versatile 2-D and 3-D graphics application integrates a rich collection of tools for vector artwork.  It supports several layers, gradient fills, customizable drop shadows, transparencies for shading and reflections, and much more.  It’s less expensive than Adobe Illustrator.

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touch-sensitive Paintbrush lets users draw with pressuresensitive graphics tablets instead of a mouse. They can use the program’s Connector objects to link boxes and symbols in technical drawings and organizational charts. SUITABILITY FOR USE IN A SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT: This vector-graphics application has a rich tool kit for logos, Web-page banners, technical drawing, and animation design. Unlike Adobe Illustrator, which requires at least 1 GB of RAM and 2 GB hard-drive space, DrawPlus X4 will run on Windows computers with as little as 512 MB of RAM (though going to 1 GB will improve performance) and less than 1 GB hard-drive space.

OVERALL RATING DrawPlus X4 is a suitable inexpensive, feature-rich vectorgraphics application for Windows-based schools running 32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, or 7. It may not be as practical in environments where time and budget constraints require the integration of software that offers versions for both Macintosh and Windows.

K12 IS STRENGTHENING THE PROMISE OF AMERICAN EDUCATION THROUGH ONLINE LEARNING OPTIONS

Let us help you keep your promise.

How? Through K12’s experience delivering two million online courses, an investment of $140 million in our curriculum, and our decade-long track record of success as America’s #1, trusted provider of K–12 online learning. K12’s web-based, fully hosted options range from supplemental courses, to blended online/classroom solutions, to full-time, turnkey online school programs—each with as much support as you need. Bring us your biggest challenges, as schools in most states and D.C. have done. We’re ready to partner with you to strengthen the promise. COPYRIGHT © 2010 K12 INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. K12 IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF K12 INC.

Please call us: 866.903.5122 Or e-mail: [email protected] Visit us at: K12.com/educators

PRODUCTREVIEWS PRODUCT: CASIO GREEN SLIM XJ-A130 DIGITAL MULTIMEDIA PROJECTOR http://greenslimprojector.comRetail price: $799

By MaryAnn Karre Like all the Casio Green Slim Projectors, the XJ-A130 is an economical, earth-friendly, low-maintenance product that incorporates a revolutionary light source for amazingly high brightness that can last 20,000 hours. QUALITY AND EFFECTIVENESS: This little dynamo, ecofriendly, easy to use, economical, and quick to boot, has everything a school needs in a projector. EASE OF USE: The XJ-A130 is simple to connect to computers and DVD and VCR players; input options include HDMI, component, composite, and mini D-Sub. There is a 1W mono speaker, but additional speakers may be necessary for large groups or classrooms. Onscreen menus and a compact but well-labeled remote make the projector easy to set up and adjust. CREATIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY: As part of its “clean and green” concept, Casio created the Green Slim projectors with a hybrid light source. Combining blue light emitted by a blue laser, green light converted from blue laser light with a fluorescent element, and light emitted by a high-lumen red LED through a DLP chip onto the screen, the XJ-A130 reproduces colors more vividly and has a brightness of up to 2,000 lumens and an 1,800:1 contrast ratio. The new technology also increases the light source to approximately 20,000 hours, Casio says, nearly 10 times that of conventional projectors. This translates to lower operating costs and less maintenance for the life of the unit. The projector measures approximately 11.7 x 1.7 x 8.3 inches and weighs about five pounds, so it’s small and light enough to travel to conferences or move between classrooms. The Casio projectors are compatible with HD video formats and HD video

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sources including Blu-Ray players, cable converter boxes, and gaming systems. SUITABILITY FOR USE IN A SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT: The XJ-A130 achieves maximum brightness in as little as eight seconds after powering on, and no cool-down is needed when it is turned off. The auto-keystone feature automatically corrects distortion, and the projector has a wide-angle 2X zoom lens, both of which permit greater magnification over shorter distances. A section of the projected image can be enlarged with a zoom function, or the image can be frozen or changed to a blank screen. The Casio Web site offers a 3D virtual demonstration of ways the projectors can be used in the classroom.

Top Features  The mercury-free hybrid light source not only delivers a 50 percent increase in color spectrum for high-impact presentations with truer colors but also lasts longer than those of traditional projector lamps.  Computer RGB, composite video, component video, and HDMI video/ audio are all supported as input sources.  The XJ-A130 projector features fast startup and shutdown, so presentations can be integrated into lessons smoothly and quickly.

JOIN US IN 2011 FOR:

Join us On Nov. 17, 2010 for Virtual Tech Forum!

Don’t miss the chance to join Tech & Learning magazine for a high-end, information-packed one-day event designed especially for district and school administrators and technology leaders like you. This is your chance to network with others who care deeply about the future of education. Share your successes and address challenges in an engaging and intimate setting, and leave with practical tools and key contacts for continued rich communities of practice. TECH FORUM PROGRAM OVERVIEW: • Practical breakouts and workshops • Roundtable Discussions • Industry Spotlights • Sponsor-Hosted Receptions • Visionary Superintendents Sharing their Perspective Thank You to Our 2010 Sponsors and Association Partners

Register today for FREE and connect with other ed tech leaders through an engaging and unique interface. Chat, network, and discuss the hot-button issues facing K-12 educators today. Plus, see highlights from the live fall Tech Forum events!

2011 Tour Chicago – April Atlanta – October New York – October Texas – November Virtual Tech Forum – Fall 2011

P rod u c e d B y : Interested in becoming a Tech Forum sponsor? Email us at [email protected]

For More INformation, visit techlearning.com/techforum

PRODUCTREVIEWS PRODUCT: IGNITE! STICK—MADE FOR SMART www.ignitestick.comRetail price: Elementary (4th or 5th grade) Stick, $249; Middle School (6th, 7th, or 8th grade) Stick, $495.

By MaryAnn Karre The Ignite! Stick—Made for SMART is a grade-level digitalcontent solution, correlated to state standards and based on subject matter, that provides custom lesson building, assessments, and interactive materials for fourth through eighth grades in math, science, and social studies. QUALITY AND EFFECTIVENESS: About 3,500 media pieces provide brief digital lessons combining music, interactive media, critical-thinking activities, and more across the three core content areas. The audio clips, humorous interactive presentations, videos, and quizzes can quickly and easily be embedded in SMART Notebook lessons to stand alone or be added to existing lessons.

Top Features  Objects for the SMART Board are easily located by subject or state standard and are a snap to embed in SMART Notebook presentations.  The videos, music, graphics, and entertaining presentations engage and motivate hard-to-reach students, no matter what their learning style.  By embedding four or five relevant questions in each Ignite! media piece, teachers can assess learning as the lesson progresses and add similar and reinforcing lessons as needed.

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EASE OF USE: As simple to use as a USB drive, the Stick requires no installation. Even teachers who are not comfortable with technology will find it easy, even exciting. Lessons can be searched by state standard, or via an index of key terms, or by drilling down through units of study in each subject area. Appropriate lesson materials display in related groups and can be saved in the “saved lessons” area of the search screen. Handy buttons provide access to a wholescreen quiz, which can be administered with or without SMART Response clickers; a timer; a glossary of terms; teacher guides and printable tests in PDF format; and a fun interactive money game. CREATIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY: A teacher can effortlessly find something of interest to introduce or reinforce a topic with, click the Notebook icon, and insert the Flash video object in SMART Notebook. Without leaving the lesson, she can use the questions to spark discussion or check for understanding, and address problem areas in related material. SUITABILITY FOR USE IN A SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT: The Ignite! Stick—Made for SMART will boost the teaching power of any lesson but is especially effective in classrooms with SMART Boards and SMART Response systems.

OVERALL RATING Ignite! Is a great name for this compact and easy-to-use tool, since it adds a spark to SMART Board lessons. The Stick makes it simple to engage learners and check for understanding seamlessly with SMART products.

PRODUCTREVIEWS PRODUCT: THE PEDLAR LADY OF GUSHING CROSS www.moving-tales.comRetail price: $4.99 from iTunes store By Carol S. Holzberg The Pedlar Lady of Gushing Cross tells the story of a poor old peddler woman who discovers good fortune by following her dreams. Written by Jacqueline Roger and inspired by a 13th-century Persian folktale, it has timeless themes found in many cultures around the world. Imaginatively adapted for the iPad by Moving Tales, this multimedia-rich version presents as an interactive storybook complete with voice-over narration (in Spanish, French or English), music, animation, and lush sound effects. QUALITY AND EFFECTIVENESS: After children select a language, there are several ways to experience the story. They can listen to each page read aloud and enhanced with music and sound effects. They can also record their version of a particular page and hear their voice narrate the text. A fourth option invites youngsters to read the story on their own while hearing music and ambient sound effects but no narration, choosing the page they wish to read by selecting it with the Navigation button on the book’s toolbar. EASE OF USE: The storybook is available through the iTunes store. Once  It’s affordable.

Top Features

 It can be used for independent reading, group instruction and formative assessment.  It’s a beautifully rendered text that can be read again and again in English, French or Spanish.

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downloaded to the computer, it installs on the iPad much like other apps when you next connect your iPad to sync. It displays only in Portrait mode, and navigation is intuitive. CREATIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY: The

storybook takes advantage of iPad features such as tap, swipe and record. While pages present only in Portrait mode, youngsters can animate the text by using the iPad’s accelerometer: They can shake the screen while listening to the narration to cause words and letters to drop from the top of the page. SUITABILITY FOR USE IN A SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT: This interactive storybook replicates the read-aloud experience, encouraging independent reading in a personalized way. Children can revisit the story or any one of its pages at any time and listen to it being read aloud as often as they like. Additionally, they can take charge of their own reading by recording their interpretation of the text. Studentrecorded text can serve as a tool for formative assessment, helping teachers pinpoint reading strengths and weaknesses. That said, to be truly successful in a classroom, future versions of the story (and other Moving Tales) should perhaps include a readaloud dictionary, into which students can key a difficult word or phrase and listen to a definition. There are several difficult words in this text. Teachers must be prepared to review these words with listeners to ensure understanding. It would also be helpful if narrated words were highlighted on the iPad screen as the narrator read them aloud, as in the Living Books interactive storybooks that Random House/Broderbund brought to the computer screen in the 1990s. When children see words as they are read aloud, they can begin to associate the sound of a word with its written form.

OVERALL RATING Recommended, with the caveat that teachers will have to review vocabulary with students to make sure they understand the story.

Finally, a data-driven analysis tool that teachers can use for differentiated instruction in under a week.

systems for education For more information and a demonstration, call 800-899-7204 or visit www.oncoursesystems

Student Stats, from OnCourse Systems, is the just-right data solution for mid-size school districts. Import virtually any student data—standardized test scores, benchmark assessments, IEPs, even attendance and discipline records—and Student Stats generates classroom reports that teachers can use immediately to craft their lesson plans. For administrators, Student Stats provides student achievement reports by teacher, grade, school and district.

The Student Stats advantage: r Web-based—no software to install or update r Customizable—reports can meet your district’s needs r Secure—control access to student records r Affordable—a manageable alternative to large-district data programs r Intuitive—Distribute reports to staff with point-and-click simplicity

PRODUCTREVIEWS

The Long Review Too often, reviews of edtech fall short of reality. Sure, speeds and feeds are important to consider, but how does this stuff work in the real world? T&L will try to answer that question this school year when our editors follow the stakeholders at Village Charter School (VCS) in Trenton, NJ as they implement Pearson’s SuccessMaker software on a 40-seat Dell PC desktop network. For a full, comprehensive look at the project, including specific product details and costs, a profile on VCS, supplemental resources, etc., go to techlearning.com and click on The Long Review.

THIS MONTH: MEET THE STUDENTS: IN ACTION IN THE CLASSROOM The last months of summer and early fall of the Long Review have all been preparation for now, as the ultimate reviewers—the kids— begin to use the Pearson/Dell labs in earnest. When students arrived back at school this September, the addition of two new media labs stuffed with sleek desktops was more than just a pleasant surprise. During back-to-school night, children excitedly tugged their parents over to have a turn to “play with the Pearson stuff.” The teachers fed off the energy of the children as they explained to parents how they have rearranged schedules in order for students to get time on the computers but trying not to sacrifice time from other disciplines (perhaps an impossible task). Even weeks later, the euphoria is sustained. When students are asked how they enjoy working with the software, there are almost unanimous smiles. The log-in process and initial testing is simple enough for anyone who knows their way around a mouse and keyboard. The courseware certainly tightens the gap between gaming and curriculum closer together. Both reading and math instruction is interactive. Lessons guide students through instruction and practice with plenty of animation and multimedia effects. A local television station reported on the Long Review experiment and captured some initial student reactions: “I like it a lot. When I’m on math and I have a hard question, it breaks it down for me.” Skeptics may point out that these initial reactions to fancy new gear, while natural, is due to nothing more than technology as novelty and does not address curriculum

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mastery, which is true to a point. Yet there are many other intangibles at work here: just having these sort of tools has done much to bolster the pride of this mostly urban student population, a majority of whom are on free or reduced lunch; having students regularly using the desktops is improving SuccessMaker Reading and Math basic technology literacy; are interactive and most importantly the courses for kids look forward to “playgrades K-8. ing with the Pearson stuff,” which means they like going to school. The question of whether or not the Pearson/Dell labs succeed in improving Village’s moribund test scores will obviously be over the course of this experiment. One thing is clear now however: The reviewers are enthused, intrigued, and engaged at the start.

LAST MONTH: MEET THE TEACHERS: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR FACULTY NEXT MONTH: CURRICULUM INTEGRATION: MIXING TECHNOLOGY WITH PEDAGOGY To watch the report visit www.wzbntv25.com/WZBN_News_ Video_Player.html?dfile=Success_Maker_ Software_9-28-10.flv To walk through a Successmaker in more detail, go to www.pearsonschool. com/index.cfm?locator=PSZkBm

FEATURESTORY

TOP

Web Tools for Enhancing Collaboration

By Özge Karao˘ glu

It’s not news that collaboration is a proven method for effective teaching, and Web 2.0 has enlarged the possibility of peer collaboration to a global scale. What follows is some of the coolest tools you can use to kick-start collaborative projects in your district in any curriculum. ■ AwesomeHighlighter is the easiest way to highlight texts on Web pages. When you finish highlighting, you get a link and share it with others. If you like this, you should also try Markkit. ■ Board800 is a multi-user-shared interactive whiteboard with simultaneous access and drawing capabilities. Users can use each page independently, and each user can see the changes on each page. ■ CoSketch is another whiteboard that you can collaborate on to visualize your ideas and share them as images. The good thing is that you don’t have to register or install anything. It works in all browsers, it’s real time, and you can get an embed code for your drawing after you finish. ■ Creately lets you create professional-looking online diagrams with your colleagues. ■ With CubeTree, you can create wikis, blogs, profiles, and feeds for your groups. ■ DabbleBoard is a whiteboard that enables you to visualize, explore, and collaborate. It also lets you conduct presentations and chat, though you cannot share files. ■ Dimdim is a tool for hosting or attending online meetings and Webinars. You can give presentations, share Web pages, voice, and video; you can record your own voice without installing anything. t is a similar tool.

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■ DoingText is a Web-based text editor for collaborative writing. You tell others the URL, and they write comments and make changes without signing up. It lets you track changes and comments by RSS feed and export text by embedding in other pages. ■ Drop.io is a simple real-time sharing and collaboration tool that lets you share text, video, and audio. You can also create online collaborative presentations and record your voice. ■ EditGrid is an online spreadsheet. You can share the spreadsheet with other users, many users can edit at the same time, and you can embed charts and tables. ■ EtherPad is a Web-based word processor that lets you work with others at the same time. When several users are working on the same documents simultaneously, you can get feedback immediately. You know who contributed to the text, and all changes are saved on the server in case you have to undo. ■ Flashmeeting is a tool for meeting people anywhere in the world. You book a meeting time and create a password that you share with others you want to collaborate with, and voilà! collaboration starts here. ■ FlockDraw is a real-time collaborative-drawing tool.

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■ Grou.ps lets you create your own social network. You can create your forum or mailing list; share documents, files, and your agenda for organizing events; have your own YouTube; and share links, bookmarks, and photos. You can chat in real time, you can let the users have subgroups, and it’s free. ■ If you are using Twitter, you may want to try GroupTweet. It lets you turn your Twitter account into a group communication tool with which everyone in the group uses direct messages. When a member receives a DM, GroupTweet turns it into a new tweet that all followers in the group can see. ■ ImaginationCubed is a multi-user drawing tool. You can use a pen, stamps, shapes, or lines, or you can type. You can also change the color of the background. ■ LucidChart is another way to collaborate on a document simultaneously. Everyone can see the changes that have been made to the document. What makes it different from the other word processors is that it has built-in group chat. ■ With MeBeam, you can create your chat room. You just type the name of the room and tell people to meet you there. ■ With Metanotes, you can create sticky notes on an online board and collaborate with friends. ■ Mindmeister is an online collaborative mindmapping tool with which you can brainstorm with others in real time. You can create your own mind maps on an award-winning interface or share them with your friends, or collaborate with others to create a map. ■ Mixbook lets you create picture books with others. You start creating your own book and then invite a few friends to build the rest of the book with you. ■ PageFlakes is a personalized social homepage that you can customize using “flakes,” which are small, movable widgets of all your Web favorites. You can add Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, photos, music, videos, a calendar, a to-do list, a message board, and an RSS feed. ■ PalBee is a free online service that allows you to set up online video meetings with friends or colleagues. You also have a whiteboard, and it lets you draw, write texts, highlight, and erase by using different tools.

■ Phuser is a tool for groups to use to discuss or work together or privately. You can share photos and files, choose who joins, and create and track discussions. ■ PrimaryPad is another collaborative tool for schools. It’s a Web-based processor for collaborating with students in real time. ■ Protagonize is a community that writes collaborative interactive fiction. One person starts the story, and others post chapters to the story that lead it in different directions. In the end it becomes an evolving story in which everyone can participate. ■ Protonotes are notes you add to your prototype to identify areas for discussion and collaboration; it’s more like a discussion-board wiki. ■ Senduit lets you upload your files and share them with your team by means of private links. ■ With Shwp, you can share your photos and video with people you’ve chosen. You can invite your friends and collaborate with them by uploading videos and pictures. ■ SpringNote is an online notebook for collaboration. You can write down your ideas, create to-do lists, schedule, and work together on projects. It also has an iPhone application. ■ With Stintio, you can create your own chat in seconds. You can invite people to join simply by sending a link. You don’t download or install anything. Your chat will be deleted if it is not active for a while. ■ Stixy lets you create online bulletin boards for collaborating with family, friends, and colleagues. You can share pictures, files, reminders, and notes by using different widgets whose size and color you can change. It’s fun, free, easy, and colorful. ■ StoryBirds are short, simple stories that connect you with others. Two or more people can create a Storybird by taking turns writing their own text and inserting pictures. You can create your story with the person sitting next to you or with someone far away. ■ Survs lets you create online surveys by collaborating with others in multi-user accounts. You can collect responses and analyze the results with others in real time. ■ TextFlow is a way to review all versions of a document instantly to produce a final draft. It compares all the versions of the text to show you all the suggestions in a single view.

TE C H & L E A R N IN G | 31

FEATURESTORY

■ Tgether allows you to communicate within small groups by means of emails. You can share files, track conversations, and manage your group. You can share codes or use third-party applications that Tgther provides. ■ Thinkature places an instant message inside a visual workspace with voice chat. You can use it as an environment for collaboration, a meeting room, or a personal whiteboard. ■ Thinklinker lets you create outlines in your Web browser. You can collaborate in real time and share outlines. You can also use chat while collaborating. ■ Twiddla lets you mark Web sites, graphics, and photos or use a blank canvas to brainstorm. You don’t have to download or use any plug-ins. ■ Twiducate is a social networking tool for schools. You create an online community for your classroom and share ideas, discuss, post questions, create surveys, and keep parents in the loop. ■ TypeWithMe is collaborative text synchronized as you type. This means that others with whom you are sharing the page can see what you are writing as you write it. ■ Useapollo is online image proofing for documents, graphics, pictures, Web design, maps, and more. You can see all the documents your team is working on. ■ I’m sure many of you are familiar with VoiceThread. It’s a tool for conversing by means of different media. It’s one of the best ways to talk about and share your images, documents, or videos. You create your Voicethread, and others leave comments by telephone, text, Webcam, microphone, and file upload. ■ Voxli allows you to hold voice conferences online. You can have a voice chat with as many as 200 people. You can invite your teammates merely by sending a link, and you don’t have to upload anything. You can use “push to talk” to speak even if you are out of your browser. ■ Voxopop is a message-board system that lets you create talk groups with which you can discuss and collaborate by using your voice. Some of you may remember that Voxopop was formerly Chinswing. You can listen to public discussions, though you must join to create your own. You can easily send group invitations and make your discussion

3 2 | TECH & L EA RN IN G

private, open, or restricted. You can delete it whenever you want. ■ Wallwisher is an online noticeboard maker. You can use this tool to make announcements and keep notes. You can use links, pictures, music, video, and pages. You don’t have to register. ■ WebCanvas is a collaborative-painting project. You can paint using basic tools, you can upload or post professionally drawn images, or you can watch others paint live. This is an interesting project for artists, though the rest of us can give it a try too. ■ Webnote is a tool for taking notes on your computer. You can also share your notes with others by giving the workspace name or the URL. ■ WeToku is an interview tool that automatically records the interview to play it back. You can embed it and share it with others. ■ Wiggio is an online tool kit that lets you work in groups easily. You can send emails, text messages, and voice mails. It makes it easy to share files and polls. You can set up video conferences and also keep a shared calendar as well as keep track of your group’s tasks and resources. ■ WikiDot is a wiki builder you can use to share content and documents and collaborate with your students, colleagues, and friends. You can create pages, forums, and separate wikis for groups or students; discuss topics; and upload files, documents, notes, and images and share them with others. ■ Wikispaces is the best way to create collaborative Web pages that you can edit and share. You can watch Wikis in Plain English by Common Craft or visit the world’s largest collaborative online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. ■ Woices is an interesting tool for sharing “echoes” that are linked to specific geographic locations or real-life objects. ■ Wridea is an online idea-management service and a collection of brainstorming tools. You store, manage, organize, and share your ideas to improve them. You use the Web interface, or you write an email to your Wridea address to keep your ideas organized. You have pages and categories that let you improve your ideas easily and collaboratively. ■ WriteBoard is a Web-based text document on which you can track every edit and change made by other users. You can roll back to any version and compare versions.

Read more of Özge Karao˘glu’s work at Techlearning.com.

Professional Development:

Blended is better By Pam Derringer No matter what the topic, Texas just isn’t a one-size-fits-all state. And professional development is no exception. Especially now, when there’s a new math initiative and many curriculum changes that require retraining. To meet the Texas-size challenge, the state recently launched Project Share, a portal offering teachers online professional development, Web 2.0 connectivity, and enriched classroom resources through links to repositories like the New York Times (retroactive to 1851) and the Texas Education site at iTunesU. In addition, the state conducted several curriculum-specific academies that were attended by more than 45,000 teachers for live classroom training last summer. “We have 400,000 educators in the state, and we can’t reach all of them face-to-face, so we’re offering training in many formats,” says Anita Givens, the Texas Education Agency’s associate commissioner of standards and programs. The goal, she says, is for teachers to have the option of faceto-face training with online follow-up or vice versa; both the online and the in-person professional-development initiatives will be expanded. Ultimately, teachers will be able to take complete professional-development modules through the portal.

Project Share and the summer academies, Givens says, have in turn sparked the spontaneous growth of informal learning communities in which instructors collaborate with others who teach the same grade or subject and encourage one another to try new strategies in the classroom. The portal (whose use is at the discretion of

3 4 | SCHOOL C IO SP EC IA L SEC T ION

each of the state’s 1,265 school districts) will include best practices in teaching and resource dashboards to help knowledge drive instruction (for example, video interviews with scientists and simulated science experiments). Eventually it may even be used to deliver digital textbooks and/ or courses.

Strategies for K-12 Technology Leaders

[PD options] Argosy University http://online.argosy.edu

Atomic Learning www.atomiclearning.com

Blackboard www.blackboard.com

Blossom Learning www.blossomlearning.com

Custom Guide www.customguide.com

Drexel University www.drexel.com

Full Sail University www.fullsail.edu/online

Knowledge Delivery Systems

Renton (Washington) Public Schools technology facilitator Reinhart Earhart leads a professional development class.

In the classroom, Givens says, the Project Share portal will function as a secure platform for educational discussions offering all the Web 2.0 tools, such as calendars, email, blogs, and wiki forums for academic purposes, and the state will provide training in responsible use. The portal has already offered teachers an extraordinary chance to communicate: A Texas-trivia question on the site sparked an “exponential” flow of photos, references, and charts statewide. The increase in networking and collaboration will be particularly helpful for rural teachers, who often work in isolation. “It really levels the playing field,” Givens says.

Mass district opts for it’s learning portal Meanwhile, public schools in Wayland, Massachusetts, recently launched an unprecedented yearlong professional-development program that will integrate technology into the curriculum. The Wayland Rises professional-development initiative includes

www.kdsi.org

seven consultant-written modules, approximately one for each month and a half, says Leisha Simon, director of technology and accountability. Each topic will be introduced by a live lecture after which there will be online reading and video lessons and collaboration with colleagues. The online segment of the professional development is accessed through it’s learning, an out-of-the-box portal–education platform with Web 2.0 communication tools that facilitate collaboration and individualized project learning. Wayland chose the it’s learning platform to teach students 21st-century skills, like collaboration, communication, and critical thinking, but will introduce the platform to the teachers first, through professional development, and then to the students the following academic year. “The teachers are the students this year,” Simon says. Wayland’s staff is using the it’s learning platform to become familiar with the curriculum-specific tech-

LearnKey www.learnkey.com

Lynda Online Training Lynda.com

Northcentral University www.ncu.edu

Nova Southeastern University www.nova.edu

PBS Teacherline www.pbs.org/teacherline

PD 360 www.schoolimprovement.com

Pearson www.mypearsontraining.com

Renaissance Learning www.renlearn.com

Solution Tree www.solution-tree.com

University of Maryland University College www.umuc.edu

University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education www.gse.upenn.edu

Walden University Online www.waldenulearning.com

S C H O O L C I O S P E C I A L S E C T IO N | 35

nology resources it will incorporate into instruction next year and to collaborate with colleagues and develop courses. In the process, Simon explains, this year’s Wayland Rises professional development is modeling the student-centered, collaborative learning style that Wayland will adopt in the classroom next year. “This is huge and new,” she says. “I don’t know of any districts offering this kind of A Texas Education Agency flyer promotes a professional development course in Algebra 1. intense, sustained professional development, focused on technology, for learning portal “takes the headaches nation of face-to-face, blended, and an entire year. Usually it’s a one-day away. It’s in the cloud. If there’s a prob- online professional development to event.” lem, I just call the company.” train its teachers. The 1,000-teacher From the perspective of a CIO, she district has three full-time trainers says, the Wayland Rises program is a Videos a great who lead large group sessions on great way to ensure that technology supplement major professional-development initools are not just purchased and sitting On the opposite coast, the tiatives, according to Brooke Trisler, on the shelf but also actively used in 14,000-student Renton School District director of instructional technology. the classroom. In addition, using the it’s in Washington State uses a combiAfter the sessions, the trainers double

A DV E RTO R I A L

Michigan Schools Turn to Blossom Learning To Unleash Full Potential of the Smart Board Calling it a watershed moment in the history of online K-12 educational product training, Blossom Learning (www.blossomlearning. com) today announced that the WayneWestland Community Schools (www. wwcds.net) district, based in Westland, Michigan, has purchased 685 copies of its Online SMART Board Course as part of its commitment to realize the full potential of the school district’s investment in SMART Boards. According to Paul Weatherhead, General Manager of Blossom Learning, the purchase of 685 copies of the 100% online course is among the largest received to date by the online training company. “We believe that the administration, teachers, and, most importantly, students of the Wayne-Westland Community Schools district are going to benefit enormously as a result of the decision made by Kevin Galbraith, Executive Director of Technology,” Weatherhead said today. Recently featured by Michigan’s WXYZ-TV Channel 7 as one of the “Best Schools in Michigan,” the Wayne-Westland Community Schools district serves 12,800

students from the communities of Wayne, Westland, Canton, Dearborn Heights, Inkster, and Romulus, Michigan. All of the district’s schools are accredited by the prestigious North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. Wayne-Westland offers award winning, innovative scholastic programs to assure every student a high quality education and a jump-start on college. Wayne-Westland is especially proud of its 14 Golden Apple Award winning schools and two Michigan Blue Ribbon Exemplary School Award winners. Introduced in January of this year, the Blossom Learning Online SMART Board Course is designed to be a complete and affordable training solution that comes with built-in LMS administrative facilities that allow school districts to facilitate purchases, allocate courses to teachers,

and track individual teacher progress toward completion. The eight-chapter course allows teachers to complete training on their schedule, and completion shouldn’t take any more than two to three weeks. However, teachers will be able to get up and running with the SMART Board within minutes of starting the online course! The course allows teachers to return to the material over and over again until they become proficient, and the course includes PDF-formatted homework practice sessions, end-of-chapter reviews and quizzes that must be completed before proceeding to the next section. By the time they are finished, teachers will have progressed sequentially from the Fundamentals level through the Intermediate and Advanced levels, and receive a personalized Certificate of Completion.

Learn More www.blossomlearning.com or call 877-390-7560

www.schoolcio.com

back and work with teachers one-onone to make sure they understand the material and integrate it into their lesson plans. Some teachers, however, have afterschool commitments and aren’t always available for individual follow-up sessions at the end of the day, so a year ago Renton added another avenue, online videos, with extra pay as incentive to use them. Using local tech levy funds, Renton bought a three-year subscription to Atomic Learning’s library of 50,000 training videos, which can be viewed remotely and which cover a broad range of topics from basics, such as Excel, Windows 7, and Outlook, to social media and more technical subjects, like Photoshop. The videos have been a “huge success,” Trisler says; to date the staff has watched 45,000 of

them. “They’re top-notch. The teachers love them.” And they offer another enrichment opportunity for those who cannot stay for follow-up training.

Some teachers can’t stay after school, so Renton added online videos, with extra pay as incentive to use them.

For the past five years Renton has also been using SharePoint as an informal professional-learning net-

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work. Participation has varied, Trisler says, with some teachers enthusiastic and others resistant, but many have been using it to post lesson plans, supplemental materials, hyperlinks, and images, whatever might be helpful to others. Renton will soon upgrade to Microsoft SharePoint 2010, which will be much better, as it has a more user-friendly interface and can interact with the public and with teachers from other districts. Smaller districts have used Facebook to share materials, but Renton is too large to monitor the network’s use in school and is concerned about Facebook’s commercial solicitation of students. “I’d love to see a robust free social-networking site for public education,” Trisler says. “Some have tried, but the sites haven’t taken off.”

FEATURESTORY

10 Great Ways to Use Digital Video Cameras in the Classroom 1 CONDUCT INTERVIEWS

2 PRODUCE PSAS, SKITS, AND MORE

Michigan, ask friends and family to interview them. They hand their interviews in with an essay in which they elaborate on what they said in them. Interview topics, chosen by the students, range from “Should I vote?” to “Gay or straight: Does it matter?” to “Where do I go from here?” At the end of the year, Wood burns the interviews onto CDs.

play, and idioms, says technology teacher Karen Hartung.

Throughout the year, the seniors in Bob Wood’s current-issues class at Oakridge High School in Muskegon,

The broadcasting crew at Benefield Elementary School in Lawrenceville, Georgia, records public-service announcements for the school’s live morning show. Sometimes they perform short skits that focus on vocabulary, word-

THE SCHOOL-TO-HOME 3 IMPROVE CONNECTION A third-grade teacher at Village School in Pacific Palisades, California, recorded his students explaining to their parents how to play a math game. Now their parents can play the same game at home. A music teacher at the school captures snippets of students to include in a video he sends to parents in lieu of a printed newsletter.

4 CREATE SLIDE SHOWS

Mary Williams’s chemistry students at St. Mary’s High School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, use Animoto (www.animoto.com), a free site that produces video pieces from phones, video clips, and music, to make 90-second (or longer) slide shows about the elements in the periodic table.

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YOUR CLASS IN 5 IMMERSE ANOTHER CULTURE Christine Berg’s French 4 class at Rondout Valley High School in Accord, New York, connected with a school for young artists in Haiti. Berg sent the Haitian students a digital video camera that she obtained through grant money, and the classes began exchanging videos. “My students wrote scripts in French and practiced reading and listening skills through email and video exchanges with the

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6 ENTER A CONTEST

Last year, Elizabeth Askine’s fourth-grade class at Norwood Elementary in Baltimore, Maryland, entered the Disney Planet Challenge. For this project-based competition, students had to work together to try to solve an environmental problem in their community. Askine’s class wrote and performed a script about how littering affects the environment and then used Flipshare software (www.theflip.com) to create the 15-minute video.

students from Haiti,” Berg says. At the same time, Berg’s students studied the geography, climate, politics, and history of Haiti.

7 RECORD STUDENTS

Becky Goerend, a sixth-grade teacher at Earlham Elementary in Iowa, records student responses to their independent-reading assignments. “In the past they would write their thoughts in a notebook. Now they can share them verbally,” says Goerend.

“It’s a simple thing, but technology motivates. I have a closet in my classroom that I use as the recording booth.”

8 FIGURE OUT HOW TO TELL TIME 9 LEARN TO READ Tamara Walker’s students at Central Elementary School in Suffield, Ohio, made a video of themselves teaching other students to tell time. The video, which has helped four other classrooms, gave Walker’s students the chance to be interactive.

This year, Elizabeth Askine’s first-grade classes are watching videos of themselves reading in order to find and correct their mistakes. They also write poems and record themselves reading them.

TE C H & L E A R N IN G | 39

FEATURESTORY ENVIRONMENTAL 10 PROMOTE AWARENESS “Last year, to accompany our schoolwide theme of ‘growing up green,’ our kindergarten teachers created greentips videos with students,” says Jayme Johnson, director of academic technology at Village School. The kindergartners planned their videos on a storyboard and then recorded their tips.

Digital Video Cameras Here are a few of the latest low-cost digital video cameras for your classrooms. ■ CANON

■ KODAK

■ SANYO

FS300

Mini Video Camera

VPC-PD2BK

$300

$100

$170

usa.canon.com

www.kodak.com

us.sanyo.com

■ CISCO’S FLIP

■ PANASONIC

■ SONY

UltraHD

HM-TA1

Bloggie camera

$150

$170

$130

www.theflip.com

www.panasonic.com

www.sonystyle.com

■ HP

■ SAMSUNG

■ TOSHIBA

HP V5040u

HMX-U20SN

Camileo S20

$150

$200

$180

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www.samsung.com

us.toshiba.com

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STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION (REQUESTER PUBLICATIONS ONLY) 15. Extent and Nature of Circulation

Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months

No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date

1.

Publication Title: Tech & Learning

2.

Publication No.: 695590

3.

Filing Date: 9/30/2010

a. Total number of copies

4.

Issue Frequency: Monthly

b. Legitimate paid and/or requested distribution (by mail and outside the mail)

5.

No. of Issues Published Annually: 12

6.

Annual Subscription Price: $29.95

7.

Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication: NewBay Media L.L.C., 810 7th Avenue, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10019-5872; Contact Person: Kwentin Keenan 703-852-4604

8.

9.

10.

Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters or General Business Office of Publisher: NewBay Media L.L.C., 810 7th Avenue, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10019-5872 Full Names and Complete Mailing Addresses of Publisher, Editor and Managing Editor: Publisher: Allison Knapp, 1111 Bayhill Drive, Suite 125, San Bruno, CA 94066-3040; Editor: Kevin Hogan, 810 7th Avenue, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10019-5872; Managing Editor: Christine Weiser, 810 7th Avenue, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10019-5872

(1) Outside-county paid/requested mail subscriptions stated on PS Form 3541

65,035

72,051

37,715

42,533

37,715

42,533

(2) In-county paid/requested mail subscriptions stated on PS Form 3541 (3) Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, counter sales, and other paid or requested distribution outside USPS (4) Requested copies distributed by other mail classes through the USPS c. Total paid and/or requested

d. Non-requested distribution (by mail and outside the mail) (1) Outside-county non-requested copies stated on PS Form 3541

26,188

28,196

(2) In-county non-requested Copies stated on PS Form 3541 (3) Non-requested copies distributed through the USPS by other classes of mail

Owner: NewBay Media L.L.C., 810 7th Avenue, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10019-5872, wholly owned by the Wicks Group of Companies—405 Park Avenue, Suite 702, New York, NY 10022

582

427

e. Total non-requested distribution

26,770

28,623

f. Total distribution

64,485

71,156

11.

Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders: None

h. Total

12.

Tax Status: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months

13.

Publication Title: Tech & Learning

16. Publication of Statement of Ownership for a Requestor Publication is required and will be printed in the November 2010 issue of this publication.

14.

Issue Date for Circulation Data: October-10

17. Signature of Vice President/Group Publisher: Adam Goldstein, September 30, 2010

(4) Non-requested copies distributed outside the mail

g. Copies not distributed i. Percent paid and/or requested

550

895

65,035

72,051

58.5%

59.8%

AD INDEX COMPANY

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AVerMedia

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36-37 51

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Epson

7

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40

Frontier

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13

Global Scholar HP DLE Intel

5 33 11 A-D

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K12

21

Lumens

17

OnCourse Systems

27

Promethean

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Vertex Standard

15

Virtual Tech Forum

11

For more information about the advertisers in this issue, please visit www.techlearning.com and click on the Advertiser Index.

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WHAT’SNEW

Hardware/AV Kensington’s PowerBack Battery Case with Kickstand and Dock (www. us.kensington.com) is an all-in-one design that integrates battery charging, a protective casing, a three-position kickstand, and a dock. The built-in charger provides five extra hours of power for the iPad, while the simple slip-on case protects the tablet computer in a compact and easy-to-carry form for use in all environments. The PowerBack’s kickstand adapts to the needs of individual users by offering three convenient viewing modes for the iPad: Portrait mode is best for viewing photos and browsing the Web; landscape mode makes watching videos a joy; and typing mode makes texting and emailing via the iPad easy and comfortable. Other features include built-in speakers and an LED battery fuel gauge.

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The CPX8 3LCD video projector (www. hitachi-america.us/digitalmedia) weighs less than five pounds and measures just 12” x 8.7”, so it’s easy to carry and use in varied locations. It offers XGA (1,024 x 768) resolution and 2,700 ANSI lumens brightness and includes HDMI, S-Video, and composite video inputs; RGB computer video inputs and outputs; two audio inputs; and an audio output. The projector has a host of features, including buttons for fast remote-control access to frequently used functions, a customizable blank button for instant control, and a blackboard/whiteboard mode that projects lines for whiteboards and blackboards. It includes a Hybrid Filter that permits 5,000 hours between cleanings and a low noise level of 28 dB.

Peek (www.getpeek.com) is a mobile device that sends and receives email and text messages anywhere in the United States; no Wi-Fi is necessary. With Peek, you can equip faculty, students, and even students’ families with effective communication tools, expand your communication capabilities without adding extra phone lines or Internet connections, and streamline internal operations by enabling everyone in your organization with mobile email and SMS access. Peek also does real-time email, texting, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as location tracking.

NewTek (www.newtek.com) has announced the TriCaster TCXD850 and TriCaster TCXD300, which let users customize their highdefinition live virtual sets. They offer network-style virtual sets developed with proprietary NewTek LiveSet technology. TriCaster VSE is accessed from the HD TriCaster control panel and employs functions familiar to TriCaster users, such as position, scale, rotation, color correction (brightness, hue, contrast, and saturation), a media browser for image selection, and the T-bar for setting custom starting and end points for zooms.

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Lutron Electronics Co., Inc. (www.lutron.com) has announced new features that enhance energy savings, control, and security for the GRAFIK Eye QS Wireless. They include optimized dimming for the Cree LR4 and LR6 LED loads, a time clock that activates presets and after-hours events on connected Energi Savr Nodes, support for large sensor counts and extended reception, twoand three-button Pico controls to provide portable control of a GRAFIK Eye QS, secure access in public locations, and prevention of unauthorized changes in lighting levels and device settings.

For more of the latest product releases, visit us online at Techlearning.com.

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NEC Display Solutions of America (www.necdisplay.com) has announced its Portable Series projectors, the M260X, the M260W, and the M300X (shown). Designed to keep audiences engaged during presentations, the value-driven, eco-friendly portable projectors are ideal for education and small- to medium-sized businesses They deliver remarkably bright images and feature wired and wireless (optional) networking, HDMI and USB inputs, high contrast (2,000:1), and 6,000 hours of lamp life (in ECO ModeT). The Portable Series was created with the environment in mind and includes a carbonsavings meter; energy-saving features, such as Power Save (<1-watt in standby mode); quick startup; and direct power-off. And the projectors offer extended lamp and filter life, benefiting classrooms and boardrooms alike.

The clamshell classmate PC design (www. intel.com) features increased ruggedness, longer battery life, improved water resistance, and additional anti-microbial protection. It protects better against damage from falls from up to 70 centimeters (the height of many desks) through improved protection from all angles, an easy-to-grasp handle, a special HDD rubber cage that reduces the impact of physical shocks and vibration, and special LCD rubber protection for minimizing the impact from being dropped or falling. It also features a water-resistant keyboard and an improved antimicrobial coating that protects against bacteria, mold, mildew, fungi, algae, and yeast by creating a surface that retards the growth and colonizing of microorganisms.

 Mini Solar Kits (www.owirobot.com) encourage creative thinking, problem solving, and a love of science. A mini solar panel activates their whimsical designs and brings them to life. Children not only learn and experiment with cause and effect but also enjoy hands-on science without the carbon emissions. Powered by sunshine or halogen lighting, the kits are perfect for sparking the imaginations of elementary- and middle-school kids who have little or no kit-building experience. The 6-in-1 Educational Solar Kit allows children to snap together 21 parts to create six working models: an airboat, a windmill, a puppy, and two airplanes.

The Numonics INTELLIBOARD interactive whiteboard (www.numonics.com) allows two students to write on the classroom whiteboard simultaneously during math and science lessons. To differentiate the pens, the second pen operates on a different frequency and is a different color.

  The Mighty Scope Pro Pack (www.aveninc.com), a kit with two handheld digital microscopes and a polarizer attachment, is an economical combination for science demonstrations and student use. It enables inspection, analysis, and measurement of magnified images that can be sent to any Windows PC and is suited to biology, earth science, and medical studies. The Pro Pack includes Mighty Scope adjustable from 10x to 200x; Mighty Scope with highest magnification 500x; a polarizer for contrast-enhancing use of the 10x to 200x scope; and accessories for hands-free operation.

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WHAT’SNEW

Cool School Apps

ALPHABET 1.5 APP (WWW.PIIKEASTREET.COM)

Alphabet 1.5 for iOS takes alphabet learning for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers to the next level by giving them plenty of opportunity to interact with the letters. The original artwork and characters draw them in, fun animation and sound effects pique their interest, and memorable, unique interactions keep them coming back for more. This new version of the app includes a slew of other often requested features, like lowercase letters and phonics sounds. The letters are pronounced softly, and the upbeat music and sound effects will have kids dancing, mimicking, and asking Mom and Dad if they can have their own iPads. Price: $2.99 Category: English

DOODLE CAM 1.0 APP (WWW.MACPHUN.COM)

Take real life in real time and transforms it into cartoon-style videos and photos that can be saved and shared instantly. Users have their choice of 11 effects and seven soundtracks, which can be changed while recording with just a tap of the screen. Whatever a user sees on the iPhone screen is what they get in their photo or video. Price: $1.99 Category: visual effects

GEOTIMESCALE ENHANCED/ GEOTIMESCALE ENHANCED HD APPS (WWW.TASAGRAPHICARTS.COM)

These apps illustrate significant events and periods in Earth’s history. The Geologic Time Scale shows the names of the eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages along with their corresponding dates. Both apps include illustrations and information about significant events. They provide a complete reference for students, educators, professional geologists, and anyone interested in geology. No Internet connection is required. Price: $0.99 Category: science

GOODREADER APP (WWW.GOODREADER.NET)

This iPad and iPhone app has just added the feature that allows users to annotate any PDF with text, freehand drawings, and several other styles. The feature lets them mark up and share manuals, schematics, meeting notes, and other

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materials. Another new feature is the ability to select text on a PDF and copy it to the clipboard, so it’s possible to copy blocks of text from a PDF into a document editor or an email message. The new version of GoodReader also enables users to view or edit all notes, highlights, markups, and drawings created in other applications and properly stored in a PDF file. Price: $2.99 Category: editing

GRAVBOT 1.0

(WW2.TEAMPHOBIC.COM/GAMES) GravBot 1.0 is a physics-based puzzle platformer in which the player decides which way is “up” as a little robot falls and pivots through various levels, each of which presents a different challenge. Find the right path and avoid enemies, spike traps, and laser beams. Use levers, buttons, and elevators to solve the puzzles. Because the game is based on physics, the simplest solution isn’t always obvious, so GravBot 1.0 presents a challenge for gamers of all ages. Price: free Category: physics

HELLO-HELLO CHINESE APP (WWW.HELLO-HELLO.COM)

A Mandarin Chinese–learning course for the contemporary iPad device, the new app offers 30 conversational lessons based on realistic situations and supplemented with hundreds of flash cards containing words and sentences for vocabulary building. Hello-Hello has built the application with advanced audio, beautiful graphics, and a research-based learning methodology to ensure an enjoyable, easy, and fast learning process for every user who is willing to learn Mandarin Chinese. Price: $9.99 in the iTunes store Category: Mandarin, languages

HISTORYTOOLS 1.5.2

(WWW.WRITERSDREAMTOOLS.COM) This new iPad and iPhone app displays a dayby-day calendar of historical events, the births and deaths of famous people in history, saints’ feast days, and holidays around the world. The entire database is available offline without a Wi-Fi or GPS connection. Users can add their own personal entries. The app’s 14.2 MB database contains 5,700 events, 6,200 birthdays, 4,000 deaths, and 600 date-specific holidays. It can also be used as a diary in which to save one’s own events and important dates, whether they are family birthdays and anniversaries or events in history of special interest to the user. Price: free Category: history

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ILIVEMATH ENTOMOLOGY 4.0 FOR IOS PHOTOTOMAC 2.0 (WWW.IHOMEEDUCATOR.COM)

(WWW.GALARINA.EU)

Young children can enjoy the photos and videos shown with this app, which was developed specifically for kindergarten through 7th grade. Early readers can learn about insects, arachnids, and the metamorphosis of butterflies and lady beetles. Higher grades are challenged by mental word problems that require visualizing the basic geometry in insect flight patterns. The app now supports the ability to display the photo and word problem to an entire classroom. It features 100 photos, 40 videos, and a million word problem–answer combinations that teach addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and basic geometry across three levels of difficulty. Price: $4.99 Category: science

This app for iPhone and iPod touch transfers photos and videos over Wi-Fi to a Mac folder. Transfers can be done in the background on iOS 4. PhotoToMac requires no cables, no Internet connection, no browser, and no emails with attachments. The only requirement is that the iPhone or iPod touch must be on the same Wi-Fi network as the Mac. The app also works on an iPad; it includes support for JPEG photos imported via the iPad Camera Connection Kit. Price: $1.99 Category: student learning

MOSALINGUA LEARN SPANISH AND FRENCH APPS (WWW.MOSALINGUA.COM)

Intended for English speakers, the app uses an effective and addictive teaching method called the Spaced Repetition System, the latest technology in facilitating memorization. MosaLingua consists of 2,700+ flash cards of words and phrases that include audio pronunciations by native speakers. The cards are classified according to category and level of difficulty. Illustrated dialogues help you learn the key phrases you need in particular situations (context learning). The app also includes learning tips and grammar lessons (including conjugations) that allow you to greatly expand your language skills. Price: $0.99 Category: languages *you can download the Multitouch Whiteboard Media Kit here: (it contains, 512x512 and 100x100 version of the icon and 6 screenshots) http://www.shiftingmind.com/whiteboard/mediakit.zip

PARK MATH 1.0 APP

(WWW.DUCKDUCKMOOSEDESIGN.COM) Featuring seven fun educational activities, the app introduces early math concepts to children in preschool and kindergarten. As children play with Blue Bear and his friends in a park, it teaches counting, addition, subtraction, sorting, and more. The music, arranged and recorded especially for the app, is performed on the cello and the guitar. The app has two levels: Level 1 includes counting up to 20 and addition and subtraction with numbers up to 5, and Level 2 includes counting up to 50 and addition and subtraction with numbers up to 10. Price: $1.99 Category: math

RULER 2.0 APP (WWW.RULERAPP.COM)

This convenient mobile innovation takes advantage of its non-wood medium to great effect. Save and come back later to see what you measured and when. Convert between inches and centimeters with one tap. Copy and paste values into other apps, like Calculator and Mail. You can even measure long objects by sliding the device and swiping. The app includes a visual guide demonstrating this simple technique. Price: $0.99 cents; free to upgrade to 2.0 Category: math

TINY OCEAN 1.1 APP (WWW.MILOCREATIVE.COM)

This educational game keeps children entertained and engaged while they learn new words. Children explore a tropical island and a musical underwater world simply by tapping illustrated pictures to play animations and sounds. There are also interactive Flash Cards in the supported languages. By tapping the microphone, parents and children can record their own voices, which play back both on the Flash Cards and in the ocean, stimulating word association and improving pronunciation and speaking skills. Tiny Ocean is great for teaching languages and currently supports English, Spanish, and Greek. Price: $1.99 Category: languages

VERNIER VIDEO PHYSICS APP (WWW.VERNIER.COM)

Vernier Software & Technology’s new application allows educators to take the video-analysis power of Vernier’s Logger Pro desktop datacollection software out into the field. The software lets them take a video of an object in motion, mark its position frame by frame, and set up the scale using a known distance. Examples of the app’s use in the field include measuring the velocity of a free-throw shot, a child’s swing, a roller-coaster, and a car. Video Physics then draws trajectory, position, and velocity graphs for the object. It is the perfect tool for teaching two-dimensional kinematics. Price: free Category: science

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WHAT’SNEW

Online & Software

ACUITY ENHANCEMENTS (WWW.ACUITYFORSCHOOL.COM)

The new enhancements for the Acuity InFormative Assessment solution include a feature that automatically assigns instructional resources to students based on their Acuity assessment results. Available with Acuity’s Predictive, Diagnostic, and Custom Assessments in Math and English Language Arts, this feature personalizes the content delivered to each student. The assigned resources each include three parts: personalized instruction, guided practice items, and a final evaluation assessment. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: assessment

A.D.A.M. INSIDE OUT HEALTH AND WELLNESS (WWW.ADAMCORP.COM)

This is an addition to the A.D.A.M. Education suite of products, which are designed to assist educators in teaching nutrition, the significance of healthy eating, and the importance of incorporating 60 minutes of physical activity into a person’s daily routine. All lessons provide students with a path to self-directed learning that includes animations and interactive resources. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: health

ADOBE ACROBAT X PRO

(WWW.ADOBE.COM/EDUCATION/PRODUCTS/ ACROBATPRO) With the new version of Adobe Acrobat X, faculty, administration, and students across districts can collaborate, increase productivity, and share their work. The new Portfolio Wizard allows educators to combine a wide range of content--including video and interactive media--in a single customizable ePortfolio, ideal for distributing course material and assessing student growth. Faculty and staff can save time and standardize processes by automating routine, multistep tasks with new guided actions. Acrobat X Pro and Reader X are scheduled to ship within 30 days, with availability through Adobe Authorized Education Resellers, the Adobe Education Store, and Adobe Direct Sales. Price: Adobe Acrobat X Pro Student and Teacher Edition is $119; volume licensing for Acrobat X Pro starts at $159. Category: Productivity

CAMS & STAMS

(WWW.CURRICULUMASSOCIATES.COM) The CAMS (Comprehensive Assessment for Mathematics Strategies) & STAMS (Strategies to Achieve Mathematics Success) series provides a powerful integrated assessment and instruction program which includes engaging interactive

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whiteboard activities for skills practice and to ensure student mastery of every concept. Designed for students in grades 3-8, CAMS is a research-based diagnostic tool, including pretests, benchmarks, and post-tests, that help identify students’ strengths and weaknesses, target instruction, and measure progress and mastery of the most important math skills at each grade level. STAMS consists of a series of highly-scaffolded lessons that allow for explicit instruction based on the results from the CAMS series of assessments. Price: The CAMS series and STAMS series contains 25 Student Books and one Teacher Guide, for a total of 50 Student Books and two Teacher Guides for $359.00.Price: $359 for 50 student books and two teacher guides; $39.90 for a pack of 10 student books; $5.95 for each teacher guide. Category: math

CCC! INTERNET-ONLY VERSION 9 (WWW.CCCVOD.COM)

New Dimension Media has launched an Internet-only model for CCC!, so a school can adopt the system without installing a server or hardware. It offers all the educational programming of the server-based CCC! at special Internet-only pricing. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: video streaming

EDWEB 2.0

(WWW.EDWEB.US) Now an open-source CMS for Education, EdWeb 2.0 is designed to complement a school district’s Web site rather than replace it, providing the district with a more comprehensive Web presence. Additional features include aggregated search, to find links to educational sites input by all teachers in the district; student log-ins, which permit nonanonymous comments by students on teachers’ blogs; a lesson-plan repository, and a share portal for sharing documents. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: Website authoring

EPALS AND LEARNINGSPACE COLLABORATION (WWW.LEARNINGSPACE.EPALS.COM)

ePals, Inc. has announced an advanced caching solution that will provide real-time access to the company’s LearningSpace product, a Web-hosted virtual workspace for creating, sharing, managing, and collaborating on educational content from any location at any time. The solution helps teachers and students create and collaborate on high-bandwidth multimedia projects in a safe environment while it satisfies schools’ bandwidth needs by ensuring reliable access for greater learning experiences. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: virtual workspace

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EXOS 5.5

(WWW.EXINDA.COM) By ensuring the optimal use of available bandwidth and easy diagnosis and resolution of network problems, ExOS 5.5 enables educational institutions to maximize the traffic over their networks without incurring additional infrastructure costs. ExOS software running on the x60 family of WAN Optimization appliances provides the inspection, identification, and reporting functions essential to effective WAN optimization, intelligent acceleration, and traffic shaping. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: networking

EXPLORE THE BLUE ENHANCEMENTS (WWW.EXPLORETHEBLUE.COM)

The Take Me Fishing campaign and Discovery Education have added even more educational tools to the recently updated Explore the Blue Website. The site offers new digital media on the importance of outdoor recreational activities, such as boating and fishing,

and the value of clean and healthy natural resources. It also features custom lesson plans for K–5 students and standardsaligned educational videos for supplementing classroom learning. Educators, parents, and students can visit Explore the Blue to find more than 12,000 places to boat and fish, as well as local services, activities, and events, and much more. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: video, social studies

FACEBOOK FOR STUDENTS (WWW.ATOMICLEARNING.COM)

Facebook for Students highlights the basics of using the most popular social networking site; how to find the site’s educational and useful features—for example, the option of deleting comments or posts—and how and why one would create a group. The product also explains important safety features and provides tips on how to be safe online and how to protect your online persona. These tutorials provide a plethora of knowledge that can’t be gained simply by signing up for Facebook. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: training, social networking

WHAT’SNEW

FARONICS ANTI-VIRUS (WWW.FARONICS.COM)

Faronics has announced the release of malware protection that combines anti-virus, antispyware, and anti-rootkit technology to provide a coordinated preemptive response to advanced malware. Faronics Anti-Virus integrates with the system-restore solution Faronics Deep Freeze to apply anti-virus updates while computers are protected in a frozen state. Price: A trial version can be downloaded at the Web site. Category: security

FLUENCY TUTOR (WWW.TEXTHELP.COM)

With this product, students can independently practice their reading, record themselves reading, answer questions about comprehension, submit assessments to their teachers, and view their progress over time. Teachers can assign individual students and groups passages appropriate to their level for practice and assessment. They can listen to and mark students’ recorded assessments at their convenience and get automatically generated WCPM and prosody scores. Using the data from Fluency Tutor’s reports, teachers can personalize instruction to meet individual students’ needs, and students can see where they have to focus to improve their oralreading skills. The newest version of Fluency Tutor, which includes passage illustrations, comprehension questions, expanded reporting, and more group options, further enhances both the teacher and student experience. Price: Annual subscriptions start at $2,245. Category: reading

MIXEDINK

(WWW.MIXEDINK.COM/EDUCATOR) MixedInk, an online collaborativewriting startup, has launched a suite of features designed for the classroom. With these tools, teachers can enable students to write together, evaluate their classmates’ writing, and learn from their peers. The MixedInk platform invites students to remix each other’s words and ideas while automatically tracking authorship through the collaborative process. By encouraging students to reuse their peers’ ideas, the tool offers an innovative model for classroom collaboration that pushes traditional boundaries. The educator package provides a number of teacher-friendly features including password protection, an interactive report showing each student’s independent contributions, and the ability to remove inappropriate content. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: writing

NASA AND CK-12 PARTNERSHIP (WWW.CK12.ORG)

NASA and the nonprofit CK-12 Foundation have announced a new chapter in CK-12’s 21st Century Physics FlexBook: A Compilation of

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Contemporary and Emerging Technologies. The FlexBook represents an important step in keeping science information pertinent and accurate through the emerging trend of online textbooks, or ebooks. The new chapter provides students and teachers with a look at a contemporary NASA space transportation project and explains how simulation-based engineering is used to develop new technology, in this case, the Launch Abort System (LAS), which is managed at NASA Langley. The LAS is a state-of-the-art astronaut escape system created to significantly improve flight-crew safety. Price: available free of charge, visit www.ck12.com to access the book for download. Category: science

PDF TO JPG CONVERTER (WWW.PDFTOJPGCONVERTER.COM)

This new freeware converter lets users convert Adobe PDF documents or several documents to image formats such as JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, and TIFF. The utility also allows users to convert multi-page PDFs to several single-page JPG images and to select the output-image DPI. The new converter has an easy tabbed interface that enables converting PDF to image with a few simple clicks. Price: free Category: freeware

PLATO LEARNING ONLINE COURSES (WWW.PLATO.COM)

PLATO Learning has introduced new content for two of its existing high school science courses. The retooled online courses are designed to meet the needs of both creditrecovery and first-time students seeking semester-long credits in biology and chemistry. The courses benefit students by featuring the latest updates in science education, including inquiry science activities, labs, and online simulations. Further, they were created to support schools’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiatives. The interdisciplinary STEM approach incorporates these four subjects into one cohesive means of teaching and learning, helping students explore them in a more applicable manner. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: Science

QUESTIONMARK PERCEPTION (WWW.QUESTIONMARK.COM)

Questionmark has added French and Spanish browser-based interfaces to its Perception assessment-management system. The French and Spanish interfaces are part of Service Pack 1 for Questionmark Perception version 5.2, which has provided multilingual participant-facing interfaces in 20 languages and a Translation Management System that streamlines the authoring, management, and delivery of multilingual online quizzes, tests, surveys, and exams. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: assessment

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SCHOOLNET RESPOND RTI SOFTWARE

TOON BOOM 6

Schoolnet introduces Respond, a comprehensive Response to Intervention (RTI) software solution. By organizing student data in a central location, Respond automates student screening, streamlines the creating of intervention plans and progress monitoring, and provides detailed reports and dashboards that give instructional leaders the tools they need to implement successful RTI programs. With Respond, districts have an open platform for defining their intervention criteria. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: assessment, RTI

Toon Boom Studio 6 expands its animation capabilities with its bonerigging features. It serves as the most complete launch pad for learning and creating animation, whether at home or in the classroom. As a bonus, Studio 6 comes with several bone-ready templates that users can incorporate into their own projects. This template pack speeds up the process of animating. In addition, it has a 62-minute how-to video that covers step-by-step instructions on creating bone animation. Price: $149.99 (academic price) Category: animation

(WWW.SCHOOLNET.COM)

SHMOOP

(WWW.SHMOOP.COM) Shmoop has, launched its online SAT prep service, which uses beloved video games, like Oregon Trail, Tetris, and Mario Brothers, as metaphors for various challenges that students will face on the SAT. In fact, Shmoop SAT Prep is itself a bit of a game. Students earn Shmoints for correctly completing portions of the SAT prep course; top Shmoint scorers win Shmoop T-shirts. Shmoop’s SAT prep service contains more than 500 vocabulary words; 1,006 practice problems in SAT reading, writing, and math; and more. Price: $23 a student; contact company for district pricing. Category: SAT prep

STARRMATICA AND EINSTRUCTION PARTNERSHIP (WWW.STARRMATICA.COM)

StarrMatica Learning Systems has partnered with eInstruction to provide free interactive content to classrooms nationwide. eInstruction customers will receive a six-month membership in StarrMatica’s online library of interactive content with all new purchases of mobile interactive whiteboards, interactive dual boards, and student response systems. StarrMatica’s online library includes more than 3,800 K–6 reading and math simulations, animations, activities, games and assessments, along with a search engine for finding content by grade, topic, and state-standard, national-core, and textbook curricula. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: interactive-whiteboard content

THINKSPIRATION (WWW.INSPIRATION.COM)

Inspiration Software’s new blog is a forum in which educators and educational experts of all levels of experience and areas of focus can exchange ideas, sharing research, news, trends, and lessons to help students achieve to their greatest potential. Thinkspiration also features the Inspired Calendar, which provides lesson plans and activities to use in employing Inspiration, Kidspiration, and InspireData with students to mark national and international holidays, celebrations, and events. Price: free Category: forum

(WWW.TOONBOOM.COM)

WRITETOLEARN 6.0

(WWW.SCHOOL.WRITETOLEARN.NET) The newest version of Pearson’s online tool for building writing skills and developing reading comprehension enables students to develop skills in essay writing and summarizing that are measured by Pearson’s state-of-the-art Knowledge Analysis Technologies (KAT) engine. WriteToLearn 6.0 now features expanded text-to-speech capability. Using Texthelp Systems’ embedded reading-support technology, SpeechStream, students can have reading passages, feedback on essays, and their own writing read aloud to them. WriteToLearn’s grammar-checking capability has also been expanded to provide students with more feedback on errors. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: writing

WWW.ENERGYBALANCE101.COM

Powered by Discovery Education, this product promotes ways to help young people achieve a healthy weight through energy balance. The curriculum includes lesson plans, resources, and videos aligned to state standards for the K–2 and 3–5 grade ranges. The entire curriculum can be integrated into classroom instruction but is flexible enough that teachers can use the complete scope of resources or select the elements that fit their needs best. Each module includes background information and tips that help teachers, as well as dynamic activities and engaging Discovery Education digital media. Family and community extension resources are also included to facilitate learning beyond the classroom. Price: free to educators Category: health

SPELLING CONNECTIONS

(WWW.ZANER-BLOSER.COM/SPELLINGCONNECTIONS) This program provides developmentally appropriate instruction using a five-day plan, an array of assessment options, and technology tools. The research-based word lists provide true differentiated instruction for students at all levels, including English Language Learners. A full complement of exciting interactive games, interactive-whiteboard-ready digital resources, and online practice activities engage today’s media-savvy students and reinforce instruction inside the classroom and at home. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: reading, writing

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THEY SAID IT

Talk About the Message By Bob Sprankle I’ve started carrying out my yearly Internet/Media survey with my third and fourth graders. It’s a survey that is a mashup of some of my own questions and questions from Common Sense Media. The responses and discussions are essential to take a “pulse” on understanding what has changed since the previous year, what tools are now being used, and how attitudes and habits have changed. One positive change this year is that students are reporting that they are searching more with the aid of a parent rather than independently (one of the things we strongly encourage at the elementary age level). One particular response in the survey hasn’t changed at all. When asked the question (created by Common Sense Media) “Have your parents talked with you about what media means or what its messages are?” more than 85% of students are reporting “No.” This is similar to what the data showed last year. Media Literacy plays a prominent part of the technology curriculum. We look at advertising, message, medium, etc. However, if the conversation is only happening at school, it’s not enough. I’d go so far to say that if the conversation isn’t continuing or further reinforced at home, then the lessons at school are largely ineffective. After looking at the data together, I asked students to describe typical shows they watch on TV (including DVD movies) and what kinds of conversation happens around them. First, I realized that my 4th graders are watching some pretty mature content (the Twilight movies and CSI episodes, for examples). Secondly, when I asked what kind

of conversations they were having with parents around what happens in the program, they confirmed that there wasn’t any conversation. I shared with my students typical conversations I have with my daughter while watching TV or movies. For example, my wife and I had many discussions about whether or not to allow our daughters to watch the popular young adult show, Glee, and finally decided to allow it. If this show isn’t a “stop, turn, and talk” show, I don’t know what is. Our family has had many really good conversations due to the issues or topics that the show has brought up. And I mean real conversations, like, “What do you think about that?” or “What would you do in this situation?” or “What questions do you have about this issue/topic?” I learned later that if you go to the review page about Glee, there’s actually a “Families Can Talk About” section to help get these conversations started. Let me be clear here: I’m no super dad, but I believe it’s important to have conversations about the media, to examine it, to question it, to talk about our likes and dislikes. The thing that we have tried to do is show that we value discussions and reflections around the media that we’re exposed to. We value our daughter’s ideas, her tastes, and dislikes. What are your thoughts? Whose job is it to talk about the media our young students are coming in contact with? Are your students having conversations with their parents? Are parents aware of what media their students are ingesting?

If the conversation is only happening at school, it’s not enough.

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Join the conversation on Bob Sprankle’s blog at Techlearning.com

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HP Smart Buy instant savings reflected in advertised price; HP Smart Buy instant savings is based on a comparison of the HP Smart Buy price versus the standard list of an identical product; savings may vary based on channel and/or direct standard pricing; available as open market purchases only. Call your CDWt G account manager for details. 2Requires a minimum of one-year support and subscription (SaS) at the time of purchase; call your CDWt G account manager for details. 3Upgrade to VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus and receive 15 virtual machines of vCenter Capacity IQ and 50 licenses of Vmware View Premier (offer valid through 12/15/10 while supplies last); call your CDWG account manager for details. Offer subject to CDWt G’s standard terms and conditions of sale, available at CDWG.com ©2010 CDW Government LLC

Unlimited potential on a limited budget.

Now available for under $2,000! To learn more about the ActivBoard Mount System and the ActivClassroom visit www.PrometheanWorld.com/mount or call 1-866-467-7918, option 2.